About 1858 the Abel Bowser family settled at a large bend in the Colorado River about 3 miles north of this site. The developing village, school and cemetery became known as Bowser Bend and by the late 1880s included a cotton gin and store. Due to river floods, Paul Varga donated land at this site for a chapel and cemetery in 1890. In the early 1900s J.T. Martin sold town lots and deeded land for a school one-half mile east. The town of Bowser relocated, but the closure of the post office, gin and school caused it to decline in the 1940s.