The N. P. Bowsher Company — feed mills on Sample Street

1882 – about 1970

The works: Nelson Prentice Bowsher kept a shop on the West Race in the 1870s — Farr's 1883 directory lists "Bowsher, N. P., foot e Washington" as one of the city's two machine shops — and in 1882 he started his factory on West Sample Street, at 1300 W. Sample, beside the Colfax wagon plant. The works made feed grinders, mill cogs, and balancing weights, and a foundry was built onto it. Its name product was Bowsher's All-Around Feed Mill, sold in seven sizes from 2 to 25 horsepower and advertised in the grain trade's journals — an advertisement in the American Elevator and Grain Trade of 15 November 1905 carries the line to the elevator trade nationally. The 1889 manufacturers' directory lists the firm among the city's makers, and Howard's 1907 list names "The N. P. Bowsher Feed Mill Manufacturing Company." It was a second-rank works by the great firms' measure and a fixture by its own: nearly ninety years on the same street.

The family's course: The founder's sons divided the house between them — Jay C. Bowsher ran the financial end and Delevan Bowsher the factory — and they ran it until their deaths in the early 1950s. Jay C.'s son, Nelson Bowsher, carried it after them. By 1970 the operation had ended: the mill-cog business was sold, feed-grinder production stopped, and the grinders themselves were made obsolete by the glass-infused steel silo and the new methods of feeding that came with it. The History Museum's account of the firm, from which this course is taken, closes the record there; no successor on the ground is carried.

Sources:

1. The History Museum, South Bend, the museum's account of the N. P. Bowsher Company — the West Race shop, the 1882 Sample Street factory and its place beside the Colfax plant, the products and the foundry, the seven sizes of the All-Around Feed Mill, the sons' division of the house and their deaths in the early 1950s, and the ending by 1970 with its causes.
2. American Elevator and Grain Trade, 15 November 1905 — the company's trade advertisement.
3. Directory of Indiana Manufacturers (1889), South Bend listings, as transcribed — the N. P. Bowsher company among the city's manufacturers.
4. Farr's South Bend City Directory for 1883, Classified Business Directory — "Bowsher, N. P., foot e Washington," under Machine Shops.
5. Timothy E. Howard, A History of St. Joseph County, Indiana, Vol. 1 (1907), manufactures chapter, sec. 15 — the Bowsher name in the chapter's closing list.