Walter S. Bowman

Walter S. Bowman (circa 1862 - 1938) was a prominent professional photographer in Pendleton, Oregon. His work is included in collections of the University of Oregon in the University of Oregon's Bowman, Moorhouse, Furlong, and Drake collections. His famous action shots from the Pendleton Round-Up are included at the National Cowgirl Hall of Fame. He captured events around Umatilla, Oregon including parades, marching bands, baseball, dances, studio portraits and Native American images (probably from the Umatilla Indian Reservation adjacent to the city of Pendleton. The University of Oregon's Walter S. Bowman photographs collection includes 379 glass-plate negatives, 51 cellulose acetate negatives, and 200 silver gelatin photoprints. The National Cowboy Museum includes numerous Bowman photographs and postcard images.

Bowman was part of a prominent pioneer family that came west from Iowa in 1862. His cousin, Oliver Purl Bowman, built the Bowman Hotel (Pendleton Oregon).

Walter S. Bowman was born "about" 1862 by Birch Creek, Oregon, Bowman began his photography studies under T.C. Ward in 1887 and purchased Ward's studio in 1890. Bowman worked in Pendleton from the late 1880s to the mid-1930s documenting life in Eastern Oregon including at events such as the Pendleton Round-Up and workers at the Pendleton Woolen Mills. Bowman was a member of the Pendleton Camera Club and knew O.C. Allen and Lee Moorhouse. Moorhouse lived with the Bowman family upon his arrival in Pendleton and captured an image of Bowman's studio along the Umatilla River at 916 Main Street. Bowman was considered Pendleton's "premier photographer" until his retirement in the mid-1930s. His studio was on the banks of the Umatilla River.

Florence Bowman Windsor remembered Bowman owning the first car in Pendleton (it may have been a Maxwell (automobile)) and his arrest for driving twelve miles an hour down Main Street. Bowman died in 1938 after a car crash that also injured his wife.

Bowman's wife Eugenia (Ellenberger) bowman died December 5, 1954 at St. Anthony’s Hospital. after an illness of 17 days. She lived in Pendleton from 1901 and was born in Berne, Switzerland. She moved to Umatilla County at 13 and lived in Pilot Rock, Oregon with her mother Fritz Ellenberger. She married Walter in 1934.

University of Oregon collection
The University of Oregon collection includes 385 glass-plate negatives, 17 nitrate negatives, 35 cellulose acetate negatives, 7 safety negatives (replacing nitrate originals), and 338 vintage and modern silver gelatin photoprints. Twelve of the prints are on Bowman's studio mounts and another twelve are postcards. The University's collection of Bowman photographs includes images donated to the library from 1947-1953 through the efforts of Umatilla County Court Judge James H. Sturgis and Lee D. Drake, a Pendleton newspaperman, county clerk, and collector of historic materials. Drake was a partner in the East Oregonian Publishing Co. and head of the Old Oregon Trail Committee of Umatilla County. Drake collected negatives he deemed worthwhile and destroyed some 900 others.

The collection includes images of early automobiles and their owners in Pendleton, including a delivery of Ford roadsters by railcar to the city. Images of the Pendleton Woolen Mills are also featured.

Selected works
Lewis Mosely on "Sunfish Molly," Riding for the Championship of the World Pendleton, Oregon, ca. 1915 Photographic Study Collection, 2004.265.4 National Cowboy Museum
 * Jack Joyce on Angel (1912)
 * Roy Adams Riding Sea Lion?, Let 'er Buck, Round Up, Pendleton, Oregon
 * C. E. Morton Six Feet Up on Bucking Bull, Round Up, 1914
 * Interior of Pendleton Woolen Mills
 * "Fancy Riding, Tillie Baldwin, the Champion Lady Buckaroo"
 * "The Bull Gets His Man at the Round Up"
 * Photograph of a Native American boy with a prosthetic hand. The boy posed standing on a wicker chair (1890s).
 * Photographic postcard
 * Indian women c. 1895
 * The Pendleton Hose Team at the 1897 Eastern Oregon and Washington Firemen's Tournament at Baker City
 * Woman with pistol (circa 1900)
 * Images of masquarades at Lehamn Hot Springs.
 * Wheat harvests