Alphonzo Bell

Alphonzo Bell medal table
Tennis player
United States
Olympic Summer Games
silver	1904 St. Louis	Double
bronze	1904 St. Louis	singles

Alphonzo Edward Bell Sr. (born September 29, 1875 in Los Angeles , California , † December 27, 1947 there ) was an American real estate and oil millionaire and a tennis player . The Bel Air district he founded in LA is named after him.

Bell graduated from Occidental College in Los Angeles in 1895 and then studied at San Francisco Theological Seminary for two more years . Otherwise he lived in the city on the west coast for the rest of his life. His father was James George Bell and his uncle John Edward Hollenbeck, a banker who was instrumental in developing public transport in Los Angeles County.

The tennis career of the American Bell was extremely successful. He won two medals at the 1904 Summer Olympics in St. Louis . After the semi-final defeat (3: 6, 4: 6) in the individual against the later Olympic champion Beals Wright , he shared the bronze medal with Edgar Leonard . In the men's doubles , Alphonzo Bell and Robert LeRoy only lost in the final against Beals Wright and Edgar Leonard in two sets with 4: 6 and 4: 6. With 9th place he was once placed among the 10 best Americans.

He closed his first real estate deal as early as 1897. In 1922, oil was found on one of his properties, whereupon he entered the oil business with his father and founded the company Bell Petroleum. He used his vast fortune to develop neighborhoods, buy and sell land in West Los Angeles. In 1922 he founded the noble Bel Air district , which is named after him. Even Bell (California) and Bell Gardens are named after him.

His son Alphonzo , born in 1914, became a member of the United States House of Representatives . His daughter Minnewa Bell Gray Burnside Ross married Elliot Roosevelt , son of President Franklin D. Roosevelt , in 1951 .

Web links

• Alphonzo Bell in the database of Olympedia.org (English)