CHAPTER 3.
Timber Towns That Died
BOWLING GREEN
John W. Griffin once said, "History doesn't happen between the covers of books, it is merely recorded there." Because of their history, the early 1800's were interesting years. Daniel Boone who blazed the Cumberland Road for pioneers to follow into the West, closed his eighty-five year old eyes on his last great adventure. Peter Cooper was receiving acclaim for his Tom Thumb locomotive, an invention that would mean much in the final development of our area. These practical men were thinking of building a country, leaving to Europe the artists like Franz Liszt, then amazing critics with his brilliance on the piano.
No account of our local grass roots settlements should dispense with the smaller places which, although weaklings, contributed bright pigments to the oils that helped paint the picture of frontier America. Regardless of size or significance, most pre-railroad towns had one characteristic in common: an affinity for woody terrain and flowing water. This is neither mystery nor mysterious. The early settlers, unfamiliar with the grain producing potential of the prairie, thought that soil capable of growing and sustaining trees must be the best for feeding the roots of agricultural crops.
The need for fuel and building material was vital, and the timberlands answered these two problems. The flowing water would operate their mill wheels, serve the animals and household and the stream would provide fish for the table. Nothing could be more desirable than the woods and streams with their abundance of wildlife and cooling shade for the hot summers.
Thus Bowling Green was established fourteen miles southwest of El Paso on a parcel of land now a part of the southwest corner of Section thirty-six in Palestine Township between the Mackinaw River on the south and Panther Creek on the north. It was begun about 1830 and reached its maximum growth in 1836 to 1838 when it enjoyed the reputation as the most thriving trading center in this region, a village of some forty buildings and almost three hundred inhabitants. It acquired this robust health because of its location astride the main trail
Page 36