 Bowers is known for assisting in an attempt to suppress a mine workers' strike.During the Cripple Creek miners' strike of 1894, Bowers attempted to get Governor Davis H. Waite to send in the state militia after the first day of the strike by wildly exaggerating the chaos in the Cripple Creek area.After 300 state troops arrived, Adjutant General T. J. Tarsney found the area calm and ordered his soldiers back to their barracks.