This cache is part of the Linn Creek Trail: Marshalltown History series. Follow the bike trail to a series of caches highlighting prominent figures in Marshalltown history. Each cache will require you to leave the trail and search for a hidden cache. The caches in this series vary in difficulty and terrain.
Bowman Brothers
Brothers George and Fred Bowman were the proprietors of Marshalltown’s Bowman Brewery from 1877-1888. In the years leading to the Eighteenth Amendment, prohibitionists put pressure on states to limit the production and transport of alcohol. Iowa followed suit, creating a law which prohibited the transport of alcohol within and into Iowa via the railways. The Bowman brothers challenged the state’s prohibition laws as an infringement on the government’s power over interstate commerce. The Bowmans sued the Chicago & Northwestern Railroad, which refused to ship beer to their Iowa plant. The suit reached the Supreme Court in 1888, which struck down the Iowa law. After the long legal battle, the brothers realized the struggle with prohibition yet to come. In 1888, Bowman Brewery became the Marshall Vinegar Company, nation-wide wholesalers of pickles.
-Hamm, Richard F. Shaping the Eighteenth Amendment: Temperance Reform, Legal Culture, and Polity, 1880-1920.