author
William A. (William Alonzo) Allen
1848–1944
A Montana pioneer, dentist, and memoirist, he wrote vivid firsthand accounts of frontier life in the Rocky Mountains. His work is especially remembered for its stories of hunting, travel, and long acquaintance with Crow leader Plenty Coups.
1 Audiobook
The Sheep Eaters
by William A. (William Alonzo) Allen
About the author
Born in Ohio in 1848, he later made his life in Montana, where he worked as a dentist and became known as one of the early settlers of the Yellowstone region. Accounts from regional historical sources describe a remarkably varied frontier life that included time as a hunter, prospector, blacksmith, gunsmith, and freighter before he settled more firmly into dentistry.
He is best known as the author of Adventures with Indians and Game; or, Twenty Years in the Rocky Mountains, a memoir first published in 1903. The book blends adventure narrative, hunting stories, and personal recollection, offering readers a lively picture of the American West as he experienced it.
Allen also helped preserve Crow history through Blankets and Moccasins: Plenty Coups and His People, the Crows, published in 1936 with Glendolin Damon Wagner and based in part on his long friendship with Plenty Coups. He died in Billings, Montana, in 1944, leaving behind writing that appeals to readers interested in frontier memoir, regional history, and the changing West.