He received his early education in public schools of Hesper, then moved to Salem, Oregon in 1893. He entered Willamette University that same year and graduated with a law degree in 1896 at the age of twenty. He was admitted to the Oregon Bar the following year, practicing law in Salem until 1899. He then moved to Condon, in Gilliam County, Oregon, where he lived for the next twelve years. There he became a law partner of H. H. Henricks. Bowerman's service in the Spanish-American War briefly interrupted his practice of the law. 