[1] Bowers served as a member of the West Virginia House of Delegates from 1883 to 1887.

He was the supervisor of the United States census for West Virginia in 1890 and a delegate to the Republican National Convention in 1892.

He was a member and treasurer of the board of World’s Fair commissioners for West Virginia in 1893 and as the United States Commissioner of Fish and Fisheries led the United States Commission of Fish and Fisheries (widely referred to the United States Fish Commission) from 1898 to 1903 and its successor organization, the United States Bureau of Fisheries, from 1903 to 1913, when he resigned.

[1] Bowers was elected as a Republican to the Sixty-fourth Congress to fill the vacancy caused by the death of William G. Brown, Jr. and was reelected to the Sixty-fifth, Sixty-sixth, and Sixty-seventh Congresses and served from May 9, 1916, to March 3, 1923.

[1] The specific name of the parrotfish Chlorurus bowersi, described in 1909 by John Otterbein Snyder, honours Bowers.