Frank Bell House

Duane's take

The official marker for the Frank Bell House tells it this way, and I'm just the one passing it along. Now, Tyler, Texas has seen a good many fine houses come and go. But every now and then, one refuses to go.

This is the story of one of those houses. Frank and Sarah Bell, she was born a Swann, were descendants of East Texas pioneers who put down roots here in the 1850s. By 1900, Frank and Sarah were ready to put down roots of their own.

They built themselves a classical revival house right there in Tyler. Frank owned and operated a store and a farm. Sarah helped raise eight children inside those walls.

Eight. That is not a small number of children, and it is not a small amount of living. Of those eight children, a couple of them left their own marks on Tyler.

One son, Frank M. Bell, served as postmaster of Tyler from 1942 all the way to 1966. That is a lot of mail, a lot of years, a lot of neighbors trusting you with their correspondence.

Another son, Henry Marsh Bell, went on to become a banker and a civic leader. And when the time came, it was Henry Marsh Bell who inherited the family house. The house stayed in his family until 1960.

After that, well, things got uncertain. The kind of uncertain where a fine old building starts looking like a problem instead of a treasure. Threatened with destruction.

Those three words do a lot of heavy lifting, and they earned their place on this marker. But here is where the story turns. In 1974, rather than let that classical revival house meet a demolition crew, somebody made sure it was moved.

Picked up, relocated, and then restored. The R. Randall Cape Family took on that restoration, and their name is incised right there on the base of the marker to prove it.

A house built in 1900, descendants of 1850s pioneers, eight children, two sons who shaped their city in their own ways, and a building that survived the threat of its own erasure. Frank and Sarah Bell built something that outlasted the odds. That is not nothing.

In Texas, that is just about everything.

What the marker says

Frank and Sarah (Swann) Bell, descendants of 1850s East Texas pioneers, built this classical revival house in Tyler in 1900. Bell owned and operated a store and a farm. The couple had eight children. One son, Frank M. Bell, served 1942-66 as postmaster of Tyler. Banker-civic leader Henry Marsh Bell, another son, inherited the house. It remained in his family until 1960. Threatened with destruction, it was moved here in 1974 and restored. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 1978 Incise on base: Restored by the R. Randall Cape Family