Bowmanville, an Old English derivative of "Bowman's Village", is situated in a farmland setting, springing up in the late 18th century through business developments and Loyalist settlement spreading out from the Bowmanville Creek. By the early 19th century, local business was centralized in edifice of the Vanstone Mill. The Mill, located at the present-day intersection of Highway Two and Scugog St., was the original 'economic engine' of Bowmanville, and its success as managed by John Burk, and later Charles Bowman (for whom the town was eventually named) led to a proliferation of subsidiary businesses and housing developments on that edge of the Mill Valley.

Nearby forests are mainly pine, elm, birch and oak, lying in the Scugog Valley and to the hills of the north as well as to the south. Farmlands formerly covered central Bowmanville until the population increased, thus establishing a neophite downtown core by the early 19th century.

Bowmanville is home to a Goodyear factory, the historic Bowmanville Foundry, the Darlington Nuclear Generating Station, an RCMP headquarters, and a deep water marina on Lake Ontario. Bowmanville was a finalist for the ITER project. Many people who live in Bowmanville work for General Motors Canada situated nearby in Oshawa, or work in Toronto using Highway 401, or the GO Train which leaves from Oshawa. Bowmanville has become a "bedroom community," as most of its citizens work outside of the town and return to rest and play. Bowmanville now has a short service bus route.

Bowmanville is bisected by CP railway, and the CN lines run to the south of town. Bowmanville had its own transit system, Clarington Transit from 2002-2005, and is now part of the Durham Region Transit East Region, as well as having connections to GO Transit and VIA Rail. The Scugog River runs west of downtown Bowmanville. Bowmanville has 3 golf courses, 1 large recreational complex (Garnet B. Rickard Recreational Centre), an Indoor Soccer Centre.

Bowmanville, Ontario is also home to Mosport International Raceway which hosts both minor grand prix races and major racing events by CASCAR, the SCCA, and American Le Mans Series annually.

It also has the largest private zoo in Canada, the Bowmanville Zoo. The zoo's residents have been in films, including the now deceased Bongo and his brother Caesar (lions) from Ghost in the Darkness, and there is a primate making wild but accurate NHL playoff predictions. The elephants are taken for walks occasionally through the town and have been known to make an appearance at Bowmanville High School's first football game of the season. A $2 million hockey museum, to be named "Total Hockey" is currently being built at the Rickard Recreational Centre which will feature the 1300 piece Brian McFarlane hockey memorabilia collection.

History

The success of the Vanstone Mill, fuelled by the machinery of the Crown's land grant program led to the rapid expansion of the Bowmanville settlement in the early years of the 19th century. Under the generous yet discriminate eyes of wealthy local merchants such as John Simpson and Charles Bowman, small properties would often be sold to promote settlement and small business. The town soon developed a balanced economy; all the while gradually establishing itself as a moderate player in shipping, rail transport, metal works and common minor business (including tanneries, liveries, stables and everyday mercantile commodity exchange.)

By the time of Confederation, Bowmanville was a vital, prosperous and growing town, home to a largely Scots-Presbyterian community with all manner of farmer, working, and professional class making the town their home. With local economic stability and accessible, abundant land available for the construction of housing, the town soon sported several new Churches, each designated to house both Free and Auld Kirk, Anglican and other Protestant congregations, including the Bible Christian Church, later to be a major stream of Canadian Methodism.

At present, St. John's Anglican Church. St. Andrew's Presbyterian Church, St. Paul's United Church and the impressively ornate Trinity United Church (site of an old Auld Kirk church) still serve the community. All of these edifices, quite appropriately, line or are in close proximity to present-day Church Street.

Local business organized and modernized nicely in the 20th century, with the Dominion Organ and Piano factory, the Bowmanville Foundry and the Goodyear Rubber and Tire Co. all providing steady work for Bowmanville's ever-growing working populations. Goodyear even went so far as to provide affordable housing for its employees, and present day Carlisle Ave. (built by magnanimous Goodyear president W.C. Carlisle) in the 1910's still stands as one of Ontario's best preserved examples of industrial housing.

Formal education evolved in-step with Ryersonian philosophies of the day, and the advent of the Central Public School (1889) and the Bowmanville High School (1890), (both designed by Whitby architect A.A. Post) were the finishing touches to the town that was a model of then-Ontario Premier Oliver Mowat's philosophy of education, expansion and innovation for the citizens of the province.

The 20th century saw a steady rise in the construction of area schools, with Vincent Massey P.S. (1955); Waverley P.S. (1978); Dr. Ross Tilley P.S. (1993); John M. James P.S. (1999) and Harold Longworth P.S. (2003) all accommodating gradual population increases and building developments in specific demographic areas of the town. The local school board (Northumberland/Newcastle)was amalgamated with neighboring Peterborough jurisdictions to form the Kawartha Pine Ridge District School Board in 1997.

As the town grew and prospered, so arrived Bowmanville's grand era of architectural building and refinement. Many excellently maintained specimens of Italianate, Gothic Revial, Colonial Brick and Queen Anne architecture line the central aspect of Bomwanville's oldest neighborhood, and this contributes to the present-day attractiveness and sense of history that the old town radiates so nicely.

Much of Bowmanville's residential and commercial architectural heritage was either lost or threatened by mindless demolition and modern development from 1950-1980, but a 25 year renaissance in appreciation and awareness (led largely by local historians and LACAC members)helped to preserve the precious remnants of days gone by.

Bowmanville remained a town until regional government created the Regional Municipality of Durham from Ontario and Durham Counties in the early 1970s. Housing developments arrived in the 1950s around Bowmanville and did not boom until the 1970s in the northern portion and lasted into the late-20th century and continues to this day. Developers include Greenpark, Melody Homes and Tribute among others. Luxury homes are about 4 km north of Bowmanville. The population rose to about 10,000 in the 1970s, about 20,000 in the 1980s, about 25,000 in the 1990s and today is about 30,000. In the 1980s, Highway 401 was later expanded to 6-lanes from 4 and later Highway 2 added another 2-lanes west of Bowmanville. Some have referred to this as the "lane-era" of Bowmanville.

Visit their website at www.bowmanville.com