Vintage Ozark Wham O Mfg By FR Bowman Batesville, AR, Professional Bat 34"

From Keyman Collectables website:

“F.R. Bowman Handle Company, now known as Bowman Handles, Inc., is a

manufacturer and supplier of replacement handles for various tools like striking and agricultural tool handles, axes, shovels, brooms, and mops.

Based in Batesville, Arkansas, F.R. "Shorty" Bowman, started the factory in 1951 as a regular lumber mill, producing handle blanks. In 1956, Bowman moved the mill to it's current site, across the highway, and five years later the first finished handle rolled off the line. The mill was incorporated in 1967, and Lynn Bowman, Shorty's nephew, began managing the operation in 1975.

By 1983, under Lynn Bowman's management, the firm turned out 75 different kinds of handles, producing 20,000 handles a day. Selling everything from sledge hammers and wedges to mattocks, grubbing hoes and manure forks. The company bought the heads, and the handles go in those tools. They contract with other companies, who furnish the heads then furnish the handles and assemble them.

There are no records of the production of baseball bats, and it seems to have ceased when the original woodworking shop closed, and moved across the highway. The bats might have been a short lived experiment to generate extra income, as indicated by the bats scarcity in the collectors market.

There are only two models known to exist with the "Made By, F.R. Bowman, Ozark Wham-O, Batesville Arkansas" diamond center brand. One a full size bat, and the other "Little League" as branded on the barrel.”