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Robert S. Bowers came to Arkansas from Louisiana, where he was born about 1858. He was admitted to practice before the Arkansas state supreme court on October 21, 1907, and apparently lived and practiced in Malvern (Hot Springs County), Arkansas, at that time. Bowers must have been admitted earlier by the local circuit court, because in 1901, he was listed as a member of the Black lawyers organization – the Wonder State Bar Association. In 1910, he was married to Lila, who brought him a stepdaughter, Lady L. Wardell, and owned his own home. It is not known when he died.
Sources: Judith Kilpatrick, “(EXTRA)Ordinary Men: African-American Lawyers and Civil Rights in Arkansas Before 1950,” 53 Ark. Law Rev. 299, 347 n350, 351 n378, 361 n470, 371, 375 (2000); The Colored Lawyers, Arkansas Gazette, 7/31/1901;