Walter Raymond Allen was born in 1921, in Ashtabula, Ohio. His parents emigrated from Finland as children. Both his mother and father settled in a large, Finnish and Finnish-American community in Ashtabula, on the banks of Lake Erie.
He moved as a child with his parents to the Bronx, New York. At eighteen he moved west to live in and attend college at the University of Colorado at Boulder, where he was a member of the ski team. On his draft card he listed his career as “actor.” While he never pursued that career professionally, he loved the arts throughout his life.
He and his family made frequent trips back to New York to visit a beloved maternal aunt. His mother based away in a tuberculosis clinic in Ohio. At some point as a young adult he broke off communication with his father.
Allen had three children and two grandchildren. He died in 1980 in Idaho Springs, Colorado.
Remarkable Industrial Photography - Industrial, Amateur Photographer My grandfather began his career at Climax Molybdenum Mine at the Harvard Observatory in 1948. In the mid-1950s he moved to the engineering department. Trained by the Army in aerial surveillance The Army Aircorp taught my grandfather how to take a good photography as part of an aerial reconnaissance team. Most of […]
Climax: The Mine, The Legend - My grandfather worked at the High Altitude Observatory and the Harvard College Observatory at Climax.
In my grandfather's photo archive is a postcard taken by William Sanborn, one of Colorado's most prolific photographers.
He took photographs to sell to tourists and residents, alike. The Fremont Station of the Harvard College Observatory would have certainly qualified as a tourist attraction.⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
The Power of Photography, The Philippines, 1945 - As a military photographer my grandfather was tasked with shooting images to convey maximum emotion. 
Mount Arkansas, A Beautiful Obsession - My grandfather was obsessed with Mount Arkansas throughout his adult life. The Top Secret Observatory - My grandfather worked at a top-secret government facility documenting solar phenomenon vital to America's security interests.
W R Allen Photography 