Who was Alexander Bowman?
Alexander Bowman (1826-1907) was a carpenter, secretary for a teacher’s association, architect, and surveyor who moved his family from New York to Illinois to further his educational and business prospects despite his persistent health and financial issues. Although some of the materials and edifices he created remain extant to this day, they do not always add up to tell a complete life story. His name is not well known by other cartographers, and he was not included in the list of official county surveyors in J.O. Cunningham’s The History of Champaign County. Bowman appears irregularly as a name on various forms of paper throughout the second half of the 19th century: a census indicating his move to West Urbana in 1857, a series of advertisements for his skills as an architect and civil engineer published in the Central Illinois Gazette and other newspapers, and a PACA record verifying him as the designer of the fourth iteration of the county courthouse (1861-1901) at the cost of $30,000.
The Champaign County Board approved Alexander Bowman’s architectural plans to expand and fireproof the courthouse, and his specifications for the building were published in Our Constitution newspaper on August 27, 1859. This fourth iteration was supposed to be an addition to the 1848 brick courthouse. But, when construction began in 1859, the former courthouse was razed to its foundations, leaving one wall standing, and a new fireproof building was built in its place. The building was completed in 1861 and stood until another remodel designed by Joseph W. Royer and Frederick Gage Brown took its place in 1901.
Here in the Champaign County Historical Archives, we know him as the creator of two prominent early maps, the 1858 Urbana-West Urbana Map and the 1863 Champaign County Map. Both maps feature drawings of significant homes and buildings along the borders. The 1858 map is notable for its use of West Urbana as the town’s name would be changed to Champaign in 1861. The 1863 map serves as an early plat map of Champaign County and is consulted regularly by staff and patrons.
Bowman and his family moved once again to neighboring Vermilion County, IL, where he found work as the county surveyor for 35 years and served three terms as their city engineer. He died on April 10, 1907. The Champaign Daily Gazette memorialized him under the headline “Died in Danville Wednesday: The Architect of the Old Champaign County Courthouse.” Having been one of the oldest Masons in the state, the Society was in charge of his funeral processions.
Long after his death, one of his descendants, Jim Bowman, donated two of his journals to the Champaign County Historical Archives in May 2017.