Los Angeles County

Biographies

 

 

 

PAUL DOWNING BOWLER

 

 

     BOWLER, PAUL DOWNING, Manufacturer, Los Angeles, California, was born in Clay County, Illinois, November 16, 1872.  He is the son of William Wilson Bowler and Alice (Downing) Bowler.  He married Sarah E. Allgood of Oneonto, Alabama, December 25, 1898, and to them there have been born five children.

     Mr. Bowler attended the public schools of his native county and the high school of Flora, Illinois.  He then entered the Orchard City College of Flora and graduated from the commercial department in 1889.

     Upon the completion of his studies, Mr. Bowler associated himself with the Branch Saw Company of St. Louis, this being the beginning of his commercial life, in which he has made rapid and successful progress ever since.  He remained with the Branch Saw Company two years and then went to Nashville, Tennessee, where he bought out the machinery business of J. M. Reed & Company.  He conducted it under its original name for a short time and then formed a partnership with A. E. Shinn, changing the name to Bowler & Shinn.  Later the house merged with the business of Keith, Simmons & Company, a machinery and supply house ranked as one of the largest and strongest financial institutions of the Tennessee capital.

     In 1900 Mr. Bowler severed his connection with Keith, Simmons & Company, and he and his family spent a year in Europe.  While abroad he made a special study of the manufacturing industries of Birmingham, England.

     Learning of the discovery of the great oil fields at Beaumont, Texas, on the tenth day of January, 1901, and realizing what this meant to the United States, Mr. Bowler went immediately to Beaumont.  He entered into partnership with M. E. Layne, one of the practical well drillers of that time, and engaged in business under the firm name of Layne & Bowler, with headquarters at Houston, Texas.

     The firm plunged immediately into the development of oil and water wells, and, finding that the methods of development then in use were crude and insufficient for operations on such a large scale as were then in progress, began to devise and patent improved methods to meet the conditions of the field.  Their system being generally adopted, Mr. Bowler’s company within a short time handled practically the entire business for oil and water well screen and vertical centrifugal pumps used in Texas, Louisiana and Arkansas.

     Mr. Bowler enjoys the distinction of having developed the entire water supply for the Trinity & Brazos Railway Company and the St. Louis, Brownsville & Mexican Railway Company at the time of their building, as well as developing the greater part of the water supply of the Southern Pacific Railroad Company (Atlantic System) for many years, each one a large undertaking.

     The Texas business of Layne & Bowler being well organized and on a splendid paying basis; Mr. Bowler, in 1909, decided to organize another corporation in California, and selected Los Angeles as the most central place for his plant, which has since been engaged in the manufacture of patented articles for the development or separation of liquids from the underground strata.  These devices now number seventeen, with twelve more pending in the United States patent office.

     Since locating in Los Angeles, Mr. Bowler has come to be one of the important men in the development of the oil fields and in irrigating progress of the Southwest.

     In former days, when an irrigator put down a well, it was attended not only with great difficulty and with only a small degree of success, but the operation carried with it great danger of life or serious injury, on account of the dug pits, etc.  Mr. Bowler, with his improved and patented devices, is enabled to do away with the dug pits and place the patented centrifugal pump to any depth desired, thus getting hold of and pushing much more water than would be possible with the old style of pump installed at water level.  Then, too, with a patented screen having thirty to forty times the screening or separating capacity of the old system whereby the pipe was perforated after it had been installed or placed in the well, Mr. Bowler is enabled to develop wells with capacity many times greater than could be done with many other of the best known means combined.

     Owing to the extensive use of the Bowler system vast stretches of arid, waste land in the Southwest have been reclaimed and put into cultivation and great oil wells have brought fortunes to their owners.  The Southwestern part of the United States is now undergoing a wonderful period of development and the producers have come to look upon Mr. Bowler’s patented products as among the principal factors in this work.

    

Mr. Bowler takes a great personal pride in his business and in being a help in the development of the Southwest, and in order that he may keep abreast of the rapid progress in the work of developing the resources of the country, has reincorporated his company, adding new capital and new blood.  The style of the new organization is the Layne & Bowler Corporation, capitalized under the laws of California for $400,000, with Mr. Bowler as President and General Manager.

     Mr. Bowler has never sought or held public office, but is well known for his activity in the temperance cause in all its phases, and is a great believer in clean government and the upbuilding of the Southwest, which he considers the best portion of the world.

     Mr. Bowler is not a clubman, but finds his chief pleasure in his church affiliation and the association of his family.

 

 

Transcribed by Bill Simpkins.

Source: Press Reference Library, Western Edition Notables of the West, Vol. I,  Page 900, International News Service, New York, Chicago, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Boston, Atlanta.  1913.

© 2012  Bill Simpkins.

 

 

 

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