by State Senator W. Scott Heywood of Jennings. He had been the first to discover oil in his adopted Jeff Davis Parish. Death and honors Allen died in the governor's mansion of a brain hemorrhage. One week before his death, he won the Democratic nomination in the special election to fill the vacancy in the U.S. Senate caused by Huey Long's assassination. He had won the Senate nomination with an unprecedented 200,000-vote plurality, but he did not live to assume the office, which went thereafter to speaker of the Louisiana House of Representatives Allen J. Ellender of Houma. Ellender held the seat until his death from coronary thrombosis on July 27, 1972. Allen was the namesake of the O.K. Allen Bridge across the Red River between Alexandria and Pineville. The bridge was imploded on September 26, 2015, due to construction on a new bridge to be named the Curtis-Coleman Memorial Bridge. The former governor is honored, along with a predecessor, Huey P. Long, by the Huey P. Long - O. K. Allen Bridge across the Mississippi River in Baton Rouge, as well as the Long-Allen Bridge over the Red River between Shreveport and Bossier City, among others. Allen Hall on the Louisiana State University Campus, is named in his honor. O.K. Allen Hall on the University of Louisiana (Lafayette) campus is named in his honor. Allen is the subject of the Lead Belly blues tune, "Governor OK Allen Blues". In 1993, Allen was posthumously inducted into the Louisiana Political Museum and Hall of Fame in Winnfield, along with the two Long governors, Huey and Earl. Personal life Allen married the former Florence Scott Love of Paris, Texas, the seat of Lamar County, Texas, on December 4, 1912. They had three children. His younger brother, Asa Leonard Allen, represented the Louisiana's 8th congressional district in the United States House of Representatives from 1937 to 1953. References External links Winn Parish Enterprise, from 1/30/36, on Gov. Allen's funeral and obituary "Oscar Kelly Allen 1932-1936", State of Louisiana - Biography. Cemetery Memorial by La-Cemeteries "Oscar K. Allen," A Dictionary of Louisiana Biography, Vol. I (1988), p. 10 1882 births 1936 deaths People from Winn Parish, Louisiana Baptists from Louisiana Democratic Party governors of Louisiana Farmers from Louisiana Businesspeople from Louisiana Educators from Louisiana Trinity University (Texas) alumni 20th-century American politicians People from Pleasant Hill, Sabine Parish, Louisiana 20th-century American businesspeople 20th-century Baptists