The Bowman City Cemetery was renamed Hillcrest in 1947. Many of the gravestones and the pavilion are much earlier.
The angel monument overlooking the Gloer family plot is perhaps the most ornate in the cemetery. Several of the burials in this plot date to the 1890s and early 1900s.
Bowman United Methodist Church was established by a small group who first met in a rural log schoolhouse in 1874. It is thought that the first formal home, a frame structure, was occupied by the late 1870s. By 1894, the congregation had grown to around 225. In 1924, members decided to raze the old church and construction began on the present structure. Mr. D. C. Griffin of Hartwell supervised the construction. It was completed in 1925. It is one of the nicest little churches to be found in a town of this size.
While it may not be the smallest police station in America, Bowman’s s “Famous Little Police Station” is certainly on the list. It’s located adjacent to the town well, which you can’t miss.
Sunbeam bread and a small town grocery store. It doesn’t get much more Southern than that…
Bowman Commercial Historic District, National Register of Historic Places
The Rexall sign on the Bowman Drug store catches my eye every time I pass by it. I only wish the weather had been better this time. The skies were threatening the whole time, but I still enjoyed walking around this friendly little town, with its antique dealers and quaint old storefronts. Bowman was incorporated in 1907 but its origins date to the late 1870s, when a road connecting Elberton and Toccoa was cut through the area. Subsequently, a depot was located here and named for Colonel Thomas J. Bowman, who had surveyed the land.
Update: As of 2019, the old Rexall sign is gone.
Letha Dickerson writes that this was Hoyt Witcher’s store. Geraldine Baker recalls it being a service station. I imagine it was both, a forerunner of today’s convenience stores.
Located on the Public Square, the old town well is Bowman’s gathering place. It was built by Goshen John Bowers.
Bowman Commercial Historic District, National Register of Historic Places
Vanishing Georgia: Photographs by Brian Brown 