When the Great War broke out in Europe in 1914, the district of Dowerin was an isolated farming district, several days travel by horse or by coach from Perth.  The coach used to stop at Slater’s Homestead because it was too far too continue on to Dowerin.  The original settlement was at what is now called Dowerin Lakes, and there was a church, a school, a teacher’s house and a tennis club.  In 1901 when Miss Margaret Couper married William Place, the first Dowerin wedding although they married in Northam, there were 32 people in Dowerin, 16 of them living at the Couper and Place homestead.  The Dowerin Lakes church was built in 1907 and the school in 1906.  Northam was the nearest town for mail, supplies and medical services.  The roads were 3 worn tracks, one for the horse and the other 2 made by the wheels of the carts.

In 1906 the railway came to Dowerin, and the town grew up in its present location. Two banks and the St Barnabas church opened in 1909; the post office was run by Mrs. Stacy from her shop, the first shop in Dowerin, until the new building was built in 1913; George Allanson owned Acme Stores, now J.K. Williams; a school was built in town in 1910, where the shire building is now; Mr. Bancroft was the blacksmith in town; Doctor Cokey came from Goomalling; Eugene O’Shaughnessy had his saddlery business.  The Dowerin Road Board was constituted in 1912 and included the Shires of Wyalkatchem and Koorda, so the names on the Great War Honour Roll and the war memorial extend beyond what we now consider to be Dowerin.

By 1914 Dowerin had a race club, a rifle range, and a football club.  In August 1914 the Dowerin football club joined with Goomalling and sent a team to the first ever Country Week in Perth where they won all their games but were beaten in the final by Bruce Rock.  War was declared while they were away.  Football stopped during the war because so many men were away. 

For farmers, keeping sheep was a challenge because dingoes were very common; sheep were herded into a pen at night with lamps placed on the corner posts.  Then 1914 still is the worst year of drought in the Dowerin district and for many farmers the situation at home looked hopeless; but they also felt a sense of duty, of being part of the British Empire, of being called to fight.  And it was not just our farmers that answered that call, but bank staff, teachers, railway men, shop keepers.  They served in the light horse and the camel corps, in the artillery, in the ambulance corps; wherever they were needed.  And they died in France and Belgium, in England, in South Africa, home in Australia in Fremantle, Wooroloo and in Melbourne, and they died on the open ocean.  The young community of Dowerin paid a very high price for duty and patriotism.