John L. McAllen photographs, 1917

John L. McAllen was born August 20, 1889 in Portland, Oregon to Don McAllen, a local civic leader. John McAllen received a bachelor of science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In 1916 he resigned from his engineering position at the Gold Bullion Mine in Knik, Alaska. McAllen was an instructor in mining at the University of Washington circa 1917 and contributed to the Winter Mining Sessions, a shorter more technical mining class than the regular academic program. McAllen also operated the Willow Creek gold mines in Alaska prior to becoming a faculty member at the University of Alaska circa 1940. He was married to Jane Nottingham McAllen and had two daughters Jane and Margaret. He was a member of the American Institute of Mining and Metallurgical engineers. John McAllen died November 19, 1944 in Fairbanks, Alaska.