Bowen Air Lines, Inc., is formed in the State of Texas as a Domestic For-Profit Corporation by Mr. Temple Gaylen Bowen. The company’s General Offices are located at Ft. Worth, Texas.
Prior to his founding of Bowen Air Lines, Mr. Bowen founded and owned, with his brother R. L. Bowen, Merchants Fast Motor Lines, a trucking firm, and later West Texas Bus Lines, which was the Southwest’s first passenger bus company.
Temple Bowen was one of the founders of Texas Air Transport, which was one of the predecessors of American Airlines, Inc. Mr. Bowen bid for Air Mail contracts from Dallas and Ft. Worth and Houston and Galveston and Dallas and Ft. Worth to Austin and San Antonio.
The company won the CAM 21 and CAM 22 and began operating the new routes with five Pitcairns and two Stearmans on February 6, 1928. The company made profits during its first nine months of operation and Mr. Bowen sells it to South Air Transport on November 1, 1928.
Photo: Mr. Temple G. Bowen, second from right holding hat, along with Bowen Pilot Bill Ponder far right holding hat and two Lockheed representatives pose in front of of Bowne’s first new Lockheed 9 Orion single-engine high-speed airliner in 1931. Mr. Bowen is accepting the new aircraft from Lockheed