William Abraham Bell

Dr. William Abraham Bell (26 April 1841 – 6 June 1921), fellow of the Royal Geographic Society, was an English physician who is best known as a photographer of the American West, and a founder and developer of several businesses and towns in Colorado, including Colorado Springs, Manitou Springs, and Durango. Early life Bell was born in Ireland in 1841, the son of an English physician named William Bell. He studied medicine at Cambridge University and practised at St George's Hospital in London after earning his medical degree. Kansas Pacific Railway survey In 1867, Bell travelled to the United States to study the medical principles of homoeopathy in St. Louis. In the United States, he joined an expedition undertaken by the Union Pacific Railroad Eastern Division (later Kansas Pacific Railway) to identify and map a southern route for a railroad connection between Kansas and California. Although Bell had no experience in photography, he was recommended for the post of expedition photographer by the expedition's geologist, John Lawrence LeConte. Accordingly, he undertook a two-week crash course in photography, purchased a camera and darkroom equipment, and joined the expedition in western Kansas, in a region near the Colorado state line that was the scene of active fighting between local Indians and United States military forces.