A farmer's daughter, Bowers married as a teenager, and her husband converted to Mormonism before the couple immigrated to the United States.

After briefly living in Nauvoo, Illinois, she became an early Nevada pioneer, farmer and miner, and was made a millionaire by the Comstock Lode mining boom.

Alison Oram (sometimes spelled "Orrum"), commonly called Eilley, was born on September 6, 1826, in Forfar, Scotland.

With Alexander gone, Bowers and Robert left the abandoned settlement of Franktown for a small mining camp called Johntown in Gold Canyon near present-day Virginia City, Nevada.

[9] When the threat of war passed, Alexander returned to Western Utah and settled in Johntown, but he did not wish to pursue the life of a Washoe miner.

In the fall of 1858 he returned to Salt Lake City where he remained a prominent member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

[N 1][12][13] Henry de Groot recorded that on his arrival in August 1859: Mrs Ellen Cowan was living at Gold Hill in a very rude and comfortless sort of abode.

[17] In order to settle the land in Washoe Valley, Bowers officially divorced Alexander Cowan on June 4, 1860.

[22] Shortly before their departure, the couple hosted a banquet at the International Hotel in Virginia City, to which the entire town was invited, and which included free champagne.

[22] After traveling to California, the Bowers sailed from San Francisco for England on May 2, 1862, aboard the steamer Golden Gate.

[23] The couple visited Eilley's family in Scotland and traveled through Europe while purchasing large quantities of furniture.

The couple returned to Nevada in March 1863, accompanied by a baby girl, named Margaret Persia Bowers.

Designed by J. Neely Johnson, the former Governor of California,[25] The two-story dressed granite stone mansion consisted of 16 rooms constructed with Jeffery Pine and Douglas fir.

Bowers improved the mansion and grounds by adding a dance hall and offering the upstairs suits for family use.

The guests bathed in the fishponds, swung under the trees, waltzed on the dance floor and generally just had a fine old time.

In April 1876, the District Court of Washoe County finally ruled against Bowers and in favor of her creditors in the sum of $13,622.17 (equivalent to $402,200 in 2024).

[34] Destitute, she was placed in the Washoe County poorhouse, and became the subject of a protracted legal dispute between the governments of Nevada and California over who was to pay for her care.

In August 1901 it was agreed that California would take responsibility for her welfare, and she was summarily put on a San Francisco-bound train by Reno officials with $30 cash.

[35] Eilley Bowers continues to be one of the most famous of 19th-century female pioneers, and a major figure in the early history of Nevada.

[37] The hot springs were remodeled to feed warm swimming pools, and a spur was built from the Virginia and Truckee Railroad to serve the property.

It is now considered the finest example of the mansion houses built by the millionaire beneficiaries of the Comstock boom,[25] is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, and is administered by the Washoe County Parks Department.