Euday Louis Bowman

Duane's take

Here's what the official marker has to say, and I'm gonna tell it the way it deserves to be told. We're talking about Euday Louis Bowman, born right here in Fort Worth on November 9th, 1886, and a man whose story has one of the great slow burns in the history of American music. Now, most fame arrives quick or not at all.

Euday's took its sweet time. He was a ragtime composer (Fort Worth born and bred), and somewhere along the way he found himself out in Kansas City, Kansas, soaking up whatever it was that city had to offer. Those experiences became a song.

He called it the Twelfth Street Rag. He got it copyrighted in 1914, and then... he waited. The song sat there.

Years rolled by. A decade. Two decades.

Three. You can almost picture Euday wondering whether the world was ever going to catch up to what he'd put down on paper. Then 1948 arrived.

Walter "Pee Wee" Hunt went and recorded it, and just like that, the Twelfth Street Rag became a classic. Thirty-four years after that copyright was filed. Other songs never got their moment at all; "Fort Worth Blues" among them, written by Bowman but never published, just... gone quiet.

And Euday himself didn't get long to enjoy the recognition. In 1949, he was on a business trip to New York City when pneumonia took him, on May 26th. Born in Fort Worth, famous for Kansas City, gone in New York.

That's a life that covered some ground. And that rag of his: it's still playing.

What the marker says

(Nov. 9, 1886 - May 26, 1949) Fort Worth native Euday Bowman was a ragtime composer. His best known song was the classic "12th Street Rag," which he wrote about his experiences in Kansas City, Kansas. Copyrighted in 1914, it did not become popular until 1948 when it was recorded by Walter "Pee Wee" Hunt. Other songs written by Bowman, including "Fort Worth Blues," were never published. He died of pneumonia while on a business trip to New York City in 1949. Recorded - 1980