Museum of Ventura County Library & Archives collection.
A controversial preacher took over
by Andy Ludlum, Museum of Ventura County Volunteer
In October 1883, one of the most controversial Ventura newspaper publishers bought the Free Press. Dr. Stephen DeMoss Bowers was a Methodist preacher and self-taught archaeological collector who also pursued a career as a newspaper publisher.
While preaching in Santa Barbara in 1875, Bowers had been the first to excavate burial grounds on both San Nicolas and Santa Rosa islands, stripping sites and selling artifacts and skulls. He also collected heavily on Anacapa, San Miguel, and Santa Cruz islands. Historians and archaeologists generally regard Bowers as a pothunter who destroyed as many artifacts as he preserved and rendered the sites scientifically useless. Bowers sent artifacts to collectors all over the country. The Smithsonian Institution, which financed Bower’s work, credits 2,200 to 2,500 of its Native American relics to his excavations.
Bowers ran the paper until 1887 when he moved to Los Angeles. He returned in 1889 to take over the Free Press, consolidating it with the Vidette which Frank Smith had begun publishing the year before. Bowers later founded his own paper in 1891, the crusading Ventura Observer.
Read more Ventura County History in the Museum of Ventura County Blog at www.venturamuseum.org/research-library-blog
