Bell Avenue

2232 W. from 7600 N. to 11870 S. This street is in West Ridge from Howard south to Peterson - ONLY

Originally, part of what would become Bell Avenue was named Pingree Street.

The City Council passed a lengthy ordinance January 14, 1895, rationalizing the street naming system. Pingree Street became Bell Avenue in 1936. So, only some of the old Pingree addresses need to be converted to the new street address system. See Pingree Street for these numbers.

Bell Avenue is not listed in the 1895, 1897, 1898, 1901, 1902, 1903, 1904 Chicago Blue Book.

Bell suffers from an identity crisis.

It might have been named after, Lt. George Bell, who in 1861 led the 37th Illinois Volunteer Infantry Regiment, which was mustered into service in Chicago. OR it was named after his son, Major General George Bell, Jr. of World War I and it's also possible that the street was really named after Alexander Graham Bell. No reference used, to date, is certain of this.

Other names for parts of Bell that were incorporated into today's Bell include: Adelaide Court, Alice Avenue, & Alice Place, Collins Street, Crescent Avenue, East Park Street, East Crescent Avenue, Hazel Avenue, Irving Avenue, Irving Place, Leipzig Street, Lothair Avenue, Palifax Court, Pedro Avenue, Perch Street, Pine Avenue, Pingree Street, Rice Place, Shober Street, Summit Street, Vail Street, York Avenue, and Yorktown Street.

Other streets that were called "Bell" before being renamed include:

Bell Avenue, now: 3850 W. to 4000 W. Bloomingdale Avenue,

Bell Avenue, now: 9500 S. to 9900 S. Seeley Avenue.

This was caused by various annexations over the years. Sometimes Chicago had multiple streets carrying the same name while at other times, there were streets that had multiple names. Bell is one of those.