Biography of Ira B. Bowen, 1902, Baker Co. Oregon: Surnames: Bowen, Burke ************************************************************************ USGENWEB ARCHIVES NOTICE: These electronic pages may NOT be reproduced in any format for profit or presentation by any other organization or persons. Persons or organizations desiring to use this material, must obtain the written consent of the contributor, or the legal representative of the submitter, and contact the listed USGenWeb archivist with proof of this consent. The submitter has given permission to the USGenWeb Archives to store the file permanently for free access and not to be removed separately without written permission. ************************************************************************ Transcribed for use in USGenWeb Archives by: W. David Samuelsen - November 2001 ************************************************************************ An Illustrated History of Baker, Grant, Malheur and Harney Counties, pub. 1902 by Western Historical Pub. Co. of Chicago. page 334 Ira B. Bowen It is now our task to present in brief and necessarily incomplete outline the life history of one of the most prominent newspaper men and most potent factors in Democratic politics in Baker county. Mr. Bowen, now editor of the well-known journal, the Morning Democrats, is a son of the old and respected pioneers, I. B. and Ann Bowen, and was born near Chicago, in Cook county, Illinois, on November 28, 1858. He is, however, practically a product of the west, his parents having brought him across the plains in 1862. The family located in Auburn, where the father started saw mill, the first ever operated in eastern Oregon. Our subject attended the first school ever organized in Baker county, but completed his education discipline in Salem, Oregon. For the half decade succeeding the year 1875 he was engaged in serving an apprenticeship in the office of George H. Himes, then the leading book and job printer in the state. Upon completing his handicraft he returned to Baker City and engaged in the publication of the Bedrock Democrat, which had been established in 1870, the second oldest paper in eastern Oregon, and the oldest in Baker county. E was engaged on that paper in one capacity or another much of the time until 1887, when he and George B. Small purchased the plant, and ever since that date our subject has been editor and publisher of the Daily Morning Democrat and the Bedrock Weekly Democrat. Thanks to his energy and ability, his paper has always taken the lead int he county, and it now has a larger circulation than any of its rivals. It belongs to the Associated Press, hence is able to give to its readers the benefit of the dispatches secured by that powerful organization. It is also the county official paper. As before stated, Mr. Bowen is very active in the counsels of the Democratic party, and several times he has been called upon to serve as chairman of its county central committee, the duties of which office he invariably discharged with great faithfulness and ability, materially strengthening the Democratic plurality in the community. Like most of the prominent men, he is interested in fraternal organizations, his membership being in the B.P.O.E., the A.O.U.W., and the Fraternal Union. He was married on October 16, 1895, the lady being Miss Mary E., daughter of P. and B. Burke, pioneers of the county. They have two children, I. B. Jr., and Anna Marie. Mrs. Bowen's father is one of the large and successful stockmen of the county.