Career
Foreign nearly half a century before his death, Allen was the anonymous but widely respected draftsman for the outstanding maps that appeared in almost every issue of Desert Magazine. As an archaeologist he was an expert on Hohokam culture and the archaeology of the Gila Bend area in Arizona. He also conducted small excavations in the San Pedro Valley, southern Utah and southwestern Colorado.
lieutenant was Allen"s work and discoveries, particularly at the Gatlin Site, one of the few documented Hohokam platform mounds, that was the impetus for the excavations in the Painted Rocks Reservoir conducted by Arizona State Museum archaeologists William Wasley and Alfred Johnson from 1959 to 1964.
In 1996 the Arizona Archaeological and Historical Society awarded the Victor R. Stoner Award to Norton and Ethel in recognition of their lifelong contributions to archaeological preservation and helping bring knowledge of the Hohokam in the Gila Bend area to the public"s attention.