Frank Bowen, born February 7, 1865, in Benton County, Iowa, was a respected grain dealer and businessman in Benclare, South Dakota. After working in various agricultural and business endeavors across Iowa, he settled in Benclare in 1890, where he established a successful general merchandise business and became a prominent figure in the local grain and stock trade. Bowen was known for his integrity and dedication to his community. His life was tragically cut short on February 27, 1904, when he was shot by a railroad station agent following a dispute over demurrage fees. Bowen left behind his wife, Kate E. Smith, and their six surviving children. The agent was later declared insane and committed to the asylum at Yankton.
Frank Bowen. —The subject of this memoir was a young man of sterling character and marked business acumen and had gained distinctive precedence in the commercial affairs of Minnehaha County, having been engaged in the grain business in the village of Benclare. His life was brought to a close by the hand of a dastardly assassin, and he thus passed away in the very prime of an honorable and useful manhood, while the crime which caused his death proved a shock to the people of the county in which he lived, while his loss was felt as a personal bereavement by his wide circle of loyal friends.
Mr. Bowen was born in Benton County, Iowa, on the 7th of February, 1865, being a son of Patrick and Catherine Bowen, and his father was a farmer by vocation, having been numbered among the early settlers of the Hawkeye state. The subject received his educational training in the public schools of his native county and remained on the parental homestead, assisting in the work and management of the farm, until he had attained the age of nineteen years, when he inaugurated his independent business career by going to Cherokee County, Iowa, where he was engaged in farming about three years, after which he followed the same line of enterprise for a time near Rock Valley, Sioux County, that state, and thereafter he was engaged in the real-estate business in the town mentioned and later in Larchwood, where he also conducted an insurance enterprise, remaining there three years, at the expiration of which, in 1890, he came to South Dakota and took up his residence in the village of Benclare, Minnehaha County, where he purchased an established general merchandise business, in connection with the conducting of which he also became one of the leading grain and stock dealers of this section.
While he also handled lumber and coal and was the owner of the well-equipped grain elevator in the town. He was an honored and progressive business man and did much to forward the industrial and civic advancement of the village, while he held the respect and confidence of all those who had an appreciation of his sterling worth of character. He was a staunch adherent of the Democrat party but never sought the honors or emoluments of political office.
On the 23rd of December 1889, Mr. Bowen was united in marriage to Miss Kate E. Smith, who was born and reared in Benton County, Iowa, being a daughter of Thomas and Catherine (Melville) Smith, while her father is one of the prominent and influential farmers of that section. Mr. and Mrs. Bowen became the parents of seven children, all of whom are living except one, and all of whom remain with their widowed mother in the pleasant home in Benclare, their names, in order of birth, being as follows: Earl T., Teresa K., Francis S., Evaline A., Lorena M., Cecilia M., and Louella A., the last mentioned having died in infancy, on the 18th of September, 1903.
Mr. Bowen met his death on the 27th of February 1904, and of the details of the tragedy we offer the following data, extracted from the current number of the Grain Dealers’ Journal, published in the city of Chicago:
How hard it is to keep on friendly terms with the station agent who tries to enforce the unjust rules of the company, grain dealers know to their cost. In stirring up animosity, the matter of demurrage claimed on cars not unloaded promptly is most prolific. A life has been sacrificed to this creator of strife. Frank Bowen, a progressive and enterprising grain dealer of Benclare, South Dakota, has been shot down by the railroad station agent after a quarrel over demurrage. Mr. Bowen paid the demurrage and thought no more of the matter, but not so the station agent. When Bowen visited the station the next day the agent called him to receipt for an express package. Bowen never finished writing his name. As he stood, pen in hand, the agent shot him in the head, and Bowen slipped to the floor, the pen making a scrawl after the letters “Fra.”
When the citizens, who highly esteemed Mr. Bowen for his integrity and fair dealing, learned of the agent’s deed the latter was with difficulty protected from their vengeance. He has been lodged in jail, and the defense made by the railroad company will not avail, as the agent did not succeed in killing the only witness. Bowen’s twelve-year-old son, who will recover from a wound in the shoulder. The esteem in which Mr. Bowen was held by the commission merchants to whom he consigned grain is shown by their messages of sympathy and requests that the bereaved widow may draw on them for any money she may need.
At the trial, held at Sioux Falls the following May, the assassin was adjudged insane and was committed to the insane asylum at Yankton.
Source: Robinson, Doane, History of South Dakota: together with mention of Citizens of South Dakota, [Logansport? IN] : B. F. Bowen, 1904.