The Bell House was a boarding house for Atlanta bachelors from the late nineteenth century through the mid-twentieth century. In 1878, Emma Bell, a young widow with two children, began taking in boarders at her home located at 67 North Pryor Street. Although she initially accepted both men and women, she later restricted her residents to unmarried men, either bachelors or widowers. Known as the Bell House, the boarding house moved to the former Leyden House at 198 Peachtree Street in 1893. Later it moved to 258 Peachtree Street near the Capital City Club. A gas street lamp, one of fifty original gas lamps in Atlanta dating to 1855, traveled with Mrs. Bell and her residents each time the boarding house moved. Mrs. Bell claimed that the gas lamp was "a sentinel angel over her boys." According to lore, Mrs. Bell enforced three rules in her establishment: no drinking; residents had to wear a coat at all times downstairs and on the veranda; and no smoking in the dining room. Residents of the boarding house were known as The Bell House Boys and residency constituted membership in an elite fraternity. Many prominent Atlanta professionals were former residents. As many as seventy-five bachelors took their meals at the Bell House at one time, and over the years, over 300 men resided there. Most of the Bell House Boys eventually married, receiving a silver pitcher from the other residents as a wedding gift. After Mrs. Bell's death in 1914, residents incorporated the Bell House and took over all management responsibilities. In subsequent years, the Bell House moved several times to locations which included a house at West Peachtree and Linden and the old John T. Grant home at Peachtree and Pine. For a time, the Bell House rented rooms at the Cox-Carlton Hotel. In 1930, it moved to the Thornton mansion on Peachtree Street, where it remained until the demolition of the Thornton house in 1957. In 1951, the Bell House Boys donated the gas street lamp to the Atlanta Historical Society. Additional historical information has not been determined.