For a few years he lived with an uncle at Hagerstown, Maryland, where he received limited educational advantages, and at the age of fourteen went out into the world to make his own way. At Waynesboro, Pennsylvania, he secured employment as a salesman in a jewelry store and remained there five years.

In 1872 he started west, working his way by repairing and cleaning clocks. He reached Lawrence, Kansas in June and from there went to Abilene and then to Ellsworth. July found him at Great Bend. After several months' employment there as a hack driver he gave up that work and engaged in the ice business on his own account. That proved a profitable venture. In September, 1874, he removed to Dodge City and with five teams began to fill a contract he had secured to haul cross ties for the Santa Fe railroad, then being built through to Colorado. This occupied his attention for several months, but in 1875 he returned to Dodge City, where he opened a livery business and conducted it for twenty-four years.

Shortly after his removal to Dodge City his bravery and fearlessness caused him to be made deputy sheriff, in which capacity he served three years. Afterward he was made sheriff and served in that office in the "cowboy" days, when that section was a wild frontier and tried men's souls to live in it. For twelve years he was a deputy United States marshal and for many years was sheriff of Ford County, having been elected to the latter office for twelve years in succession prior to January, 1911. He is a Democrat and each victory was won in a county that is strongly Republican. During his service as sheriff of Ford county he made a great many important captures and arrests of desperate frontier characters—old outlaws who had for years defied arrests—such as cattle thieves, bank and train robbers, etc. He was a terror to these notorious characters, who in the early history of western Kansas reigned in bands in that part of the state and along the border of the old Indian Territory. Dodge City was for many years a rendezvous for this undesirable element, and to Mr. Bell's tact and ability as an officer is largely due the credit for eradicating the "bad men" in that section.

He made Dodge City be good and is now esteemed by all for his good work in this direction. Unlike many men who occupied the office of sheriff in those "wild days," Mr. Bell was never accused of shooting a man or of using drastic means in effecting an arrest.