Chautauquan Kim Harris portrays Eilley Bowers for Oct 24 Frances Humphrey Lecture at the Nevada State Museum

The Nevada State Museum presents an evening with Eilley Bowers, a Chautauqua performance by Kim Harris.

In her time, Eilley Oram Bowers was one of the wealthiest women in the United States. Born on a farm in Scotland, Eilley married as a teenager, converted to Mormonism and the couple immigrated to the United States. She became an early Nevada pioneer, farmer and miner, and was made a millionaire by the Comstock Lode mining boom. Eilley was twice divorced by the time she married her third husband, Lemuel "Sandy" Bowers. With their new wealth, they built the Bowers Mansion in Washoe Valley, one of the largest houses in the western United States.

Harris will bring to life the real Eilley Bowers with dignity and respect. She will share the West that Eilley was a part of and give the audience an insight into a world they may have been little acquainted with before.

Eilley Bowers was a real living human being, with dreams sometimes realized and sometimes lost. Following the death of her husband, and with the collapse of the Nevada mining economy, Eilley Bowers became bankrupt and destitute. She reinvented herself as "The Famous Washoe Seeress," a professional scryer and fortune-teller. Eilley will tell, in her own words, of her adventures, her admirers and her adversaries... and why she was regarded, at least for a while, as "Queen of the Comstock."

Kim Harris is an accomplished Chautauquan with over 15 years of experience, having presented local and national historical characters from California to Bronxville, NY. She is the owner of Western History ALIVE! that presents the lives of many famous and infamous historical figures.