Burley Bowler
1890– 1967

Inducted June, 1976

Burley Bowler, publisher of the Scobey Daniels County Leader from 1924 to 1967, typified the fearless, incisive weekly editor who loves a good fight and a good story.

Bowler was born in 1890 in Dundalk, Ontario, where he worked in a drug store and learned the jeweler’s trade. He moved to Saskatchewan in 1909, married Maud Cryderman, also of Ontario, and arrived in Montana in 1913. He was unable to continue as a jeweler after he suffered burns on his fingers. He had “hung around” the newspaper in Radville, Sask., before the accident, and his interest in journalism led to a job with the Flaxville Democrat and later the Flaxville Hustler.

In 1917 Bowler bought the Antelope Independent. When the town’s business section burned, he sold the newspaper and went to work for the Scobey Sentinel.

Bowler bought the Daniels County Leader in 1924 and during the late 1920s and the 1930s engaged in outspoken editorial crusades against Communists, a statewide liquor racket and New Deal policies. He was an ardent supporter of the LaFollette-Wheeler ticket in 1924. He helped organize the first co-ops in Daniels County. Among Bowler’s editorial foes were Charles (Red Flag) Taylor, publisher of the Plentywood Producers News, and A.C. Townley, organizer of the Nonpartisan League in North Dakota.

In 1926 arsonists damaged his newspaper plant. The Leader was printed at Wolf Point until the building could be repaired.

Bowler served as administrative assistant to Sen. Zales Ecton from 1950 to 1952.

Bowler and his wife had a daughter, Gwendolyn, and two sons: Larry, who became editor and publisher of the Leader, and Duane, longtime editorial-page editor of the Billings Gazette. Duane Bowler observed that his father was “much more liberal than most people thought. He was more of a populist than anything else. He was a raconteur and he had a splendid sense of humor.” Larry recalled that his father never avoided controversy but cautioned him that “anyone who embarks on a program of vengeance embitters his own soul.”

Bowler was president of the Montana Press Association in 1958.

He died of cancer Dec. 18, 1967 at age 77. Until a few weeks before his death, he had continued to write his “Publisher’s Column” in the Leader.

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