Bowser Bend

Bowser Bend was in a bend of the Colorado River twenty-four miles northwest of San Saba in northwestern San Saba County. The community, founded about 1875, developed around a gin owned by James Monroe Locker and a store managed by his sons. A post office, named in honor of A. Bowser, was established there in 1887 by Simeon Whitted in his home. In the late 1880s a fire destroyed the Bowser school. It was soon rebuilt, this time on higher ground to avoid the floods that occasionally struck the community. By 1892 Bowser Bend had a population of 150 and a general store, a mill-gin, a physician, a justice, and a constable. In 1893 its post office was discontinued. After the local gin was moved, Bowser Bend residents began to move to nearby Bowser. A church and various school buildings remained at the townsite in the 1980s, when the school, then the focus of a restoration project, served as headquarters for an annual summer homecoming celebration.