In 1967, after trying unsuccessfully to purchase Beasley Alarm, a security company that had operated in Amarillo, Texas, since 1926, Dale Elliott and Dorothy Fly Elliott started their own company, which they called Amarillo Burglar Control, later named Allstate Security Industries.
At its inception, Allstate was the embodiment of a mom-and-pop shop, with family playing a key role in building the business. In those early days, the company monitored around 200 accounts using an Ademco 130 monitoring module installed in a spare bedroom in Dale’s mother’s house. Whenever an alarm was activated, she knew to call the police, making her Allstate’s first central station operator. As the company grew, more and more lines ran into the house until it reached the point where this was no longer feasible.