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Harvey Allen Bowers was born on October 30, 1896 in Porter Township, Schuylkill County to an immigrant family. His father, Herman Bowers, was a German immigrant. The younger Bowers joined the U.S. Army and served with the 28th Division in France during the First World War. He saw combat with the 108th Machine Gun Battalion in the Second Battle of the Marne and in the Argonne Forest in 1918.
He returned home and found intermittent work in the struggling anthracite coal mines of extreme western Schuylkill County, above his hometown of Tower City. Bowers died in a horrific car accident on September 23, 1924. He was ejected from a speeding vehicle and died from a massive head wound. Several other passengers were severely injured in the collision as well.
“Deep sorrow is expressed on all sides at the fate of Bowers and for his widowed mother family,” wrote the West Schuylkill Herald three days after the accident. “He was a young man of quiet manners, universally liked.” He was buried after a military funeral in Fairview Cemetery on September 28, 1924. Bowers was an active member in his community – a member of the United Mine Workers of America, Junior Mechanic,* a member of the Knights of Pythian – and apparently affiliated with the Ku Klux Klan as well.
