Members of the Albert Brown Family posing for a group portrait, on the steps of the Albert Brown house, on the occasion of the 50th wedding anniversary of Albert and Georgiana Brown, 1925. Bottom left up and over down right: Howard Brown, Annabelle Brown Gregory, Albert Brown, Georgiana Paynter Brown, Blanche Brown Blair, Florence Brown Kuhn, Viola Brown, Allie Brown. (Gift of Sharri Knight, Albert Brown Collection, Kelley House Photographs)
December 21, 1917 – Allie Brown came up from San Francisco to spend the holidays with his parents. He was the youngest son of Mr. and Mrs. Albert Brown, who raised seven children in their home just west of the Blair House on Little Lake Street.
Born in Mendocino in 1887, Allie graduated from Mendocino High School in 1906 and received a Civil Engineering degree from Stanford University in 1912. Following his college graduation, he returned to the Mendocino Coast, accepting a position with the Union Lumber Company in Fort Bragg. His first assignment was to make an extensive timber survey with Doc Bowlen in the Ten-Mile River area, and later he laid out the Fort Bragg logging railroad that ran to Ten Mile. By June of 1917, he was working for the Pacific Fire Extinguisher Company in San Francisco.
On December 1, 1917, Allie enlisted in the Aviation Corps of the United States Army and left for Berkeley to begin training. In May, he made his first flight at the training school in San Diego, going up with an instructor. In September, Lieutenant Allie Brown, now a fully-qualified aviator, returned to Mendocino for a brief visit before leaving for Fort Worth “to take advanced work. He is well pleased with this branch of the service and thinks flying is the only game worth while. In altitude work he has so far done up to 10,000 feet.”
After his return from the war, Allie moved to Nevada County where he served as Superintendent of Railroad Construction for Hobart Lumber Company, which maintained an extensive logging railroad. He eventually settled in Los Angeles where he engaged in the real estate business. Allie Brown passed away at the Veterans Hospital in Sawtelle on August 14, 1960.
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