Bowie, Texas

Everything Bowie is known for

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Rivers & Roads in Song near Bowie

Songs written about the waterways and highways that run near Bowie.

Red River 84 songs Texas State Highway 199 8 songs Interstate 35 42 songs Interstate 44 5 songs

History of Bowie

The Brawl That Built a Legend RoadyGoat

The name of this town points back to one wild afternoon that turned Jim Bowie into a household name. It was the nineteenth of September, eighteen twenty-seven, on a sandbar in the Mississippi River between Vidalia, Louisiana, and Natchez, Mississippi. Two men, Samuel Wells and Doctor Thomas Maddox, had a quarrel they figured could only be settled with pistols. They picked a sandbar because dueling was illegal on dry land in the parish. The two duelists fired, missed, and shook hands to make peace. Everything should have ended right there. Instead, the crowd of supporters who had come along drew on each other, and the whole thing exploded into a brawl. Jim Bowie was shot and stabbed, but he pulled out a big butcher-style knife his brother had given him and fought back ferociously. When the dust settled, two men lay dead and Bowie was badly wounded but alive. Witnesses could not stop talking about the fearsome blade and the man who wielded it. That single fight is where the legend of the Bowie knife was truly born.

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From the Alamo to the Rock Stage RoadyGoat

Now for a twist that connects a Texas frontiersman to one of the biggest rock stars who ever lived. The town you're passing through is named for Jim Bowie, and so, in a roundabout way, was David Bowie. The rock icon was actually born David Robert Jones in London in nineteen forty-seven. Trouble was, another young singer named Davy Jones, the fellow who'd soon front the Monkees, already had the name locked up. So in nineteen sixty-five, David Jones went looking for a new one. He landed on Bowie, in tribute to Jim Bowie and that famous frontier knife. He later explained that he liked how the blade could cut both ways, calling it the ultimate American knife, a fitting image for a performer who reinvented himself again and again. So the same name that a group of Texas railroad settlers chose for their new town in eighteen eighty-two, a Brixton kid chose for his stage career eighty-some years later. A frontier blade, a Montague County town, and a glam-rock legend, all pointing back to one man.

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How Jim Bowie Really Died RoadyGoat

The picture most folks carry of Jim Bowie's last stand at the Alamo is a man swinging his famous knife until the very end. The truth is quieter and a little sadder. By the time the siege closed in during late February of eighteen thirty-six, Bowie was gravely ill, bedridden, and slipping in and out of delirium. Historians have argued for well over a century about exactly what laid him low. Some point to a form of pneumonia, others to typhoid, and still others to consumption, which is what people then called tuberculosis. The honest answer is that we do not know for certain. What we do know is that on the sixth of March, eighteen thirty-six, when Mexican forces overran the Alamo, Jim Bowie died in his sickbed. There are competing eyewitness accounts, some romantic and some grim, and one famous storyteller named Madam Candelaria claimed she was cradling him when soldiers rushed in, though her tale changed with every retelling. So the legendary knife fighter did not go down in a whirlwind of blades. He met his end sick and confined, which arguably makes his refusal to leave the fort even braver. This town's name honors that quieter kind of courage too.

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Wagonseller, Wayne Warren

1955

Wayne Warren Wagonseller, attorney, Texas state legislator, and rancher, son of Amos Warren Wagonseller and Clara Augusta (Beck) Wagonseller, was born in Nocona, Montague County, Texas, on February 1, 1921. He was the third generation of a pioneering family whose roots in North Texas reached back nearly five decades. His grandfather, William Riley Wagonseller, arrived in Texas from Indiana a decade after the Civil War and established himself in Wise County as a blacksmith. By 1920 his son, twenty-six-year-old Amos Wagonseller, had established a farmstead in neighboring Montague County, and in 1921 Wayne was born. Wayne Wagonseller attended North Texas State Teacher’s College (now University of North Texas), but like so many young men of his generation, the onset of World War II interrupted his studies. Two months after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Wagonseller enlisted in the United States Army as a private and was assigned to the Ninth Infantry Regiment, Second Infantry Division (known as the Indianhead Division). The division trained in England and Wales from October 1943 to June 1944 before crossing the channel and landing at Omaha Beach on D-Day Plus 1. The Indianhead Division participated in the breakout at Saint-Lô, the siege of Brest, the Battle of the Bulge, and in 1945 fought its way across the Rhine and into Germany. While serving in the Ninth Infantry, Wagonseller distinguished himself. He was twice wounded (at Saint-Lô and Brest) and earned the Bronze Star and Purple Heart. He ascended to the rank of technical sergeant. The army discharged him from active duty in June 1945 shortly after the end of the war in Europe. He married Betty Clarice Benton on December 28, 1949, but the couple divorced within several years and had no children. After receiving an honorable discharge from the army, Wagonseller resumed his studies, earned his bachelor’s degree, and then attended law school at the University of Texas, where he remained active in the Ex-Serviceman’s Association. He ultimately graduated and gained admittance to the Texas Bar Association in 1953 and practiced law in both Bowie and Austin. However, Wagonseller’s abilities in the political arena soon established his reputation throughout the state of Texas. He first won election to the House of the Fiftieth Texas Legislature and served two terms as a representative of District 47 (Montague County) between 1947 and 1951 before winning a seat for District 22 (representing multiple counties in North Texas, including Denton, Jack, Montague, Palo Pinto, Parker, and Wise counties) in the Texas State Senate, where he was elected for three terms. During his years in the state legislature he served on many committees. He chaired the Labor Committee during the Fifty-first legislature, chaired the Stock and Stock Raising Committee and Military and Veteran’s Affairs Committee during the Fifty-second legislature, and chaired the Labor Committee during the Fifty-third legislature. On November 22, 1954, Wagonseller married Mina F. Hawkins and became stepfather to her two daughters—Mina Jo and Susan. Wagonseller’s abilities as an orator served him well in his political career. Described as possessing a formidable voice, his skills brought him a brief moment of fame on March 31, 1955, when he set a national filibuster record in the Texas State Senate. Wagonseller and his colleagues, Kilmer Corbin of Lubbock and William T. Moore of Bryan, spoke against a bill authorizing a reduction in registration fees for bus companies. Senator Johnnie B. Rogers proposed the measure on the grounds that bus companies had been losing money and that a reduction in registration fees would offer relief. The three men who filibustered the bill, which was ultimately approved, maintained that the lost revenue would come out of the funds of the State Highway Department . Wagonseller further observed that the fee cut would increase one major bus company’s profits by 50 percent, amounting to a governmen

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Allred, Governor James V., Home County of

1935

(March 29, 1899-Sept. 24, 1959) Vigorous, forthright and humane chief executive of Texas in years 1935-1939. Born in Bowie, one of nine children of Renne and Mary Henson Allred worked in youth as a soda pop bottler, shoeshine boy, newsboy. Attended local schools, Rice University, Cumberland Law School; was in U.S. Navy during World War I. Admitted to the Bar in 1921, his early law practice was with firm of Bernard Martin and Ben G. O'Neal, Wichita Falls. After experience as Assistant District Attorney, was named in 1923 by Governor Pat Neff to office of District Attorney, 30th District, where he earned a strong reputation in fight against Ku Klux Klan. Married Joe Betsy Miller, of Wichita Falls, and had three sons: James V. Jr., William David, and Sam Houston Allred. As Texas Attorney General 1931-1935, won many victories over monopolies; put "teeth" into gasoline tax law, to halt evasions; corrected a number of unfair trade practices; defended oil proration laws, winning the very first test case; successfully fought attempts of Federal officials to tax the income of Texas schools; established school fund's title to West Texas oil royalties worth over twenty million dollars. In 1934 race for Governor, James V. Allred was victorious over five opponents. In 1935 he was named "Outstanding Young Man in America" by the National Junior Chamber of Commerce. Won second term by landslide, in 1936. As Governor, 1935-1939, he implemented strong executive, legislative and judicial programs to correct social and economic ills; led fight that outlawed pari-mutuel gambling in Texas. During his administration, Social Security amendments were added to Texas Constitution, and on Nov. 19, 1935, he signed the state's first Old-Age Assistance Bill; soon instituted Aid to Dependent Children, Aid to Needy Blind, and a Teachers' Retirement Fund. Secured for schools the greatest per capita apportionment that they had known; obtained for the instructors fairer salaries; advanced building programs for colleges and other state institutions. Set up a Board of Pardons and Paroles to correct old system whereby it was alleged a Governor might "sell" pardons; initiated prison reforms; revised Industrial Labor Commission; instituted Unemployment Insurance system. Combined Texas Rangers and Highway Patrol to form State Department of Public Safety. In 1937 gave encouragement to an aspiring statesman, Lyndon B. Johnson, then running for Congress and later to be 36th President of the United States. Befriended many others seeking high public office, including later U.S. Senator Ralph Yarborough, Secretary of Treasury Robert B. Anderson, and Chief Justice of Texas Supreme Court Robert Calvert. Named to Texas Judiciary its first woman member--Judge Sarah T. Hughes, of Dallas. After his two terms as Governor, Allred was twice appointed United States District Judge, and was on bench at time of his death. He is buried in Riverside Cemetery, Wichita Falls. Outstanding Texas Statesmen Series, 1968.

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Lamb, William Robert

1886

William Robert Lamb, Texas Populist leader, was born on October 21, 1850, in McNair County, Tennessee, one of seven children of John Madison and Parmelia A. (Thomason) Lamb. His father was from Missouri. While he was a boy his family moved to Claibourne Parish, Louisiana, where William's mother died. When his father moved to Arkansas, William was bound out for eighteen months to a local Claibourne Parish man, and when his contract was up he worked for two other men in the parish. In 1869, the year his father died in Bowie County, Texas, William moved to Collinsville, Grayson County, Texas, where he worked as a stationary engineer. In 1871 he moved to Denton County and worked first as a rail splitter and then as a hired hand for area farmers. On October 12, 1873, Lamb married eighteen-year-old Drusilla E. Wilson of Jackson Parish, Louisiana, and began farming on rented land. In July 1876 he took a preemption on land in Montague County adjoining the block on which the town of Bowie was later laid out. He built a log cabin on the land and in 1883 moved his family to it. By March 12, 1891, when his wife died, Lamb had five children. On April 24, 1892, he married Mrs. Elizabeth Mary Greenwood Pepperell. In Denton County, Lamb had worked in a cotton mill and gin, and in 1886, with thirteen other members of the Farmers' Alliance , he opened a cooperative gin and mill that, according to one historian, collapsed because of lack of access to credit. Lamb apparently was involved in another gin in Salona at about the same time, and in 1898 in Bowie with a third gin and mill and cooperative warehouse. The last subsequently burned. Throughout the period he speculated in land; he sold town lots to help finance the third Bowie gin, mill, and warehouse. As of 1905 he still owned sixty acres of land adjoining Bowie. A year after he settled his family on his land in Montague County, Lamb was recruited into the Texas Farmers' Alliance by S. O. Daws, the organization's first traveling lecturer. Despite only twenty-five days of formal education, Lamb immediately became president of the Montague County alliance. He was so successful an organizer in his county that the state alliance meeting in October 1885 devised a new office for him, that of state lecturer. His subsequent career in the Farmers' Alliance and then the People's party marked him as a leader in both organizations equal, in Texas, to Charles William Macune , who is much better known. In late 1885 Lamb, a leading proponent of cooperative purchasing and marketing, became the first traveling agent of the Texas Farmers' Alliance, the state representative for all county alliance cooperative-purchasing operations dealing in farm machinery. By early 1886 Lamb had emerged as the leader within the Texas alliance pushing hardest for the organization to cooperate with the Knights of Labor , particularly in the Great Southwest Strike . His experience with manufacturers' opposition to large-scale cooperative purchasing by the alliance, and with Jay Gould 's intransigence in the Southwest Strike, led him by the spring of 1886 to advocate involvement of the alliance in politics. Around Lamb grew a group responsible for the Cleburne Demands, an aggressive platform outlining farmers' grievances, which the Texas alliance adopted in its state convention in August 1886. The group's greenback, antimonopoly sentiments reappeared in a number of alliance and third-party platforms, then emerged in final form in the Populists' 1892 Omaha platform. By 1888 Lamb was active in third-party politics. In the spring of that year he was elected to the national executive committee of the Union Labor party and served as the ex officio chairman of the credentials committee at the national convention. With the support of such alliance radical antimonopoly greenbackers as Harry Tracy , Evan Jones , H. S. P. (Stump) Ashby , Thomas Gaines , and James Perdue, Lamb organized the Union Labor party in Texas in the summer of 1888,

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M. Johnson Poultry Ranch

1905

Mose Johnson was born at New Harp (Montague Co.) In 1881, his father died when Mose was three, and his mother Sarah gave him a baby chick to teach responsibility at an early age, sparking a lifelong interest in poultry. In 1904, Mose married Mabel Jones, and the following year they began the M. Johnson Poultry Ranch with five single comb white leghorns and one rooster. The ranch’s large incubator led to international shipment of day old chicks, and by 1915, the ranch covered 350 acres and was considered one of the largest enterprises of its kind. The Johnsons’ 1924 home was advertised as “the house that white leghorns built.” The business continued to expand in Bowie and Wichita Falls before closing after Mabel’s death in 1974. 					(2008)

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Pelham Park

1878

Before Bowie was incorporated in 1883, Confederate Captain John J. Carter purchased 160 acres in 1878. As early as 1879, veterans of the Confederate Army would meet on land owned by Captain Carter. The Carter Property was situated near the new cemetery and was a place to congregate before or after a burial. Captain Carter died on Jan. 29, 1882, but his wife, Charlotte Jane Carter, permitted the veterans to continue using the property. Bowie Pelham Camp, No. 572, United Confederate Veterans, was organized in 1895 with over 100 members. The veterans purchased 26.5 acres from Charlotte Carter in 1901 for $450 with stipulations that the property would always be dedicated to veterans, past, present and future. In 1905, a pavilion was built in the park along with three water wells, a barbeque pit, mess house and a long dining shed. Land was paid in full by 1910 and the group grew to over 300 members. Over the years, membership declined and the remaining camp members decided to transfer the property to the city of Bowie, which was finalized on August 14, 1923. On Jan. 6, 1931, the city fathers officially named the park Bowie Pelham Park. The confederate monument located elsewhere in bowie was moved to the park in 1936 as well as the WWI marker. The first Jim Bowie Days celebration and rodeo to promote the community was held in 1967. “Second Monday,” a popular meeting of farmers and ranchers to barter livestock and goods near the railroad tracks, was eventually moved to Pelham Park in 1970. In 1989, the city of Bowie purchased 28 adjoining acres from the Hill Family for expansion of the park to continue the historical and community legacy of Pelham Park.

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Bowie, TX

1882

Bowie is an incorporated community on U.S. Highway 81 fifteen miles southwest of Montague in southwestern Montague County. In 1882, when the tracks of the Fort Worth and Denver Railway were built through the area, local settlers who had been there since the early 1860s moved to the site of the construction camps, and soon businesses appeared in canvas tents. A townsite was laid out on August 15, 1882, and residents applied for a post office to be named for James Bowie . On July 22, 1884, residents voted to incorporate the new town. Bowie became a market and financial center for farmers and ranchers between Fort Worth and Wichita Falls. In 1885 it had a population of 1,000, three hotels, a bank, a weekly newspaper, schools, and a number of churches. The Chicago, Rock Island and Texas Railway came to Bowie in 1893, and by 1900 the community had an estimated 2,600 residents. By the mid-1920s Bowie had a population of 3,000 and about 100 businesses, including four banks, two weekly newspapers, a hospital, and a business college (opened in 1912). During the mid-1950s the population was 6,796, and by the late 1980s the town reported 5,818 residents and 160 businesses. By then Bowie was the largest town in Montague County. In 1990 its population was 4,990, and it rose in 2000 to 5,219.

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Sports in Bowie

🏆 STATE CHAMPIONS Class 3A · Boys Basketball · 2018

Bowie — 2018 UIL 3A Boys Basketball State Champions

Most recent: 2018 3A

Bowie High School, nestled in the heart of Bowie, Texas, stands as a proud Class 3A institution with a notable record in boys basketball. The Jackrabbits have established themselves as a competitive force within the UIL, bringing significant athletic recognition to their community. The school's commitment to sports is a key part of local identity.

The boys basketball program reached the pinnacle of Texas high school sports, securing a state championship in 2018. This achievement highlights a period of strong performance and dedication from the Bowie athletes. The success of the Jackrabbits on the court is a point of pride for the entire town.

State titles
2018
Most recent
2018
Class
3A
The moment

The Bowie High School boys basketball team captured the 3A state championship in 2018.

Sources: UIL State Championship Archives

Everything Near Bowie

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