Bill was twenty when he volunteered for the army following the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941. Trained as a paratrooper, he jumped into Normandy on D-Day and fought in the Battle of the Bulge—two of the war’s most decisive campaigns. Following World War II, he came home to St. Paul to get a college education, raise a family, make a small fortune in printing and plastics, and build the enormously successful Padelford Packet Boat Company.

"Bill Bowell inspired me as mayor to reconnect the city with our river. St. Paul’s renaissance began with Bill’s drive to make it happen."
—Norm Coleman, U.S. Senator and former mayor of St. Paul