The H. O. Bell home at 380 Keith Avenue in Missoula’s University District, about 1925. Bell came to Missoula in 1915 and bought the Ford automobile dealership. He built his home in 1921. In 1929, he opened H. O. Bell Company at the corner of South Higgins and South Fourth Street and became an important businessman. The two other homes visible are those at the southwest corner of Hilda and McLeod and the northeast corner of Keith and Gerald. (94-1417, R. H. McKay Photographs, K. Ross Toole Archives, The University of Montana—Missoula)

Highly interested in aviation, H. O. Bell served as chair of the Missoula County Airport Board for over thirty years. The Missoula International Airport, formerly known as Johnson-Bell Field, was named for him. He died in 1971. By 1951, the homes surrounding this one were all present. Now the University District and other historic Missoula  neighborhoods face issues of preserving or changing historic structures, density rates, and razing homes to replace them with larger ones. (Photo by Kristi Hager, 2006)