Bob Allen was born in Lewiston on April 19, 1928 to Percy and Frieda Allen. In his younger years, he lived in Harpster and Stites. After losing his father at age 12, he soon quit school and went to work on various ranches in the area. He went to work for the US Forest Service as a packer in the late 1940s in the Buffalo Hump area. He loved mules, horses and being outdoors.

He served in the Army in the Korean War. After discharge, he returned to Stites and married Lois Schneider. He learned to operate dozers in the woods, thus starting his career working in the woods for Potlatch Forests, Inc. He worked out of Headquarters for nearly 40 years. Bob and Lois moved to Headquarters and then Pierce, where they started a family. They had two children and later divorced.

Bob married Jeanette Dennison Schrempp, the love of his life, Jan. 24, 1969. They lived in Pierce, then moved to the Pierce-Weippe divide, where they built their home. They later moved to Lewiston, until Jeanette passed away in August 2012. Then Bob moved to Brookside Landing in Orofino.

The couple avidly supported basketball and went to most of the games in the area. They served as grand marshals for Pierce 1860 Days and the Weippe Rodeo. He was the founder of the J. Howard Bradbury Logging Museum in Pierce. He and Jeanette worked many hours in the museum to get it up and running. He also served as president of the Bald Mountain Ski Area for many years.

In an interview for Clearwater Reflections, he recounted an experience he had during the last log drive. He was in the river with the bulldozer and some of the logs got hung up. There was no one around and the river was really coming up. Bob got the bulldozer over a rock and could not get it off. The water got clear up to the seat. They loosened the fans so the water would not get into the radiator if the dozer got into the river.

"I was sitting up on the bird-cage, and pretty soon here came a boat up the river. They went back and got a D-4 double drum. Harry Smith, he was running that old thing. We got him up there and we hooked on to that thing, and we got it off of there. It was just luck. But there was water plumb up to the seat in that old dozer," Bob said.

He passed away Jan. 17, 2018.

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