Edwin A. Allen was born December 9, 1865, in Log City, north of Galesburg. His parents were Shelden O. and Zipporah Edwards Allen. He was the grandson of Shelden W. and Fidelia Leach Allen, pioneers of the Galesburg community. He grew up on the farm and attended Knox College for three years.

As a young man, he was given the opportunity to work for George Westinghouse who created the wondrous illumination for the World's Columbian Exhibition in Chicago in 1893. Electric lighting was a new phenomenon which delighted the public.

In the days before man-made lighting, darkness was an inconvenient part of life. Work had to stop when the light faded and there was a concern about safety when being away from home at night.

Galesburg had gas street lights at intersections in the 1880s when Carl Sandburg was a lad playing baseball in the dusty street near his home. Coal was heated to a high temperature which produced a gas. It was manufactured and stored during the daytime in huge tanks. It was then piped to lamps throughout the city. In the evening a lamplighter would light each street light and return in the morning to put out the lamp. It was a high maintenance operation.

Allen returned to Galesburg and became an electrical contractor. In 1900 he erected a pole in the Public Square which had five arc lights on it. The pole was more than sixty feet tall. The generator for the electricity was located near Central Congregational Church. The intense light shown for five or six blocks around it. The other neighborhoods of the city didn't benefit from the illumination.

The arc lights used on the pole in the Public Square were made from hard carbon rods which had to be replaced every twelve to fourteen hours. They also required considerable attention to keep them producing light.

Allen also put the first electric motors in Galesburg street cars which previously were pulled by horses. He performed electrical work for the United States Post Office on South Cherry Street. The Carnegie Library erected on Simmons Street in 1903 was also wired by Allen.

On December 27, 1894, Edwin Allen married Desdemona Burkhalter. They had three children, only one surviving to adulthood. Dessie was the daughter of James L. Burkhalter who had settled in Maquon in 1856. He was a bridge builder and contractor.

It is said Burkhalter built the foundation for the Wolf Covered Bridge over Spoon River. He also erected bridges for the Peoria and Oquawka Railroad. Burkhalter served in the Civil War from 1862 to 1865. He organized two companies of infantry and rose to the rank of major. He became the president of the Farmers' and Mechanics' Bank in 1884 and served until his death in 1908. After his wife's death in 1893, he lived with the Edwin Allen family.

Edwin Allen died October 3, 1958, at the age of 92, in the Good Samaritan Home in Knoxville. He had lived in his home at 522 North Academy Street until two months before his death. His wife had died in 1942 and was buried with other Burkhalter family members in Linwood Cemetery. Mr. Allen's funeral was conducted from the First and Puckett Funeral Home, with burial next to his wife.

At the turn of the twentieth century, Edwin Allen helped dispel the darkness in Galesburg. Today street lighting is so common and provides so much illumination that we can't see the Milky Way in the night sky.