Greater Mitchell Chamber of Commerce

Mitchell is a city in United States. The population was 4,567 at the 2000 census.

It is the birthplace of astronaut Gus Grissom, Purdue University Mechanical Engineering graduate, who flew on Liberty Bell 7, Gemini 3, and who died in a launch pad fire at Kennedy Space Center in 1967.

History

Mitchell was built as a railroad town in the mid-19th century. At the rural location in Lawrence County, the Chicago, Indianapolis and Louisville Railroad, better known by the shorter name of "the Monon", was built as north-south line from New Albany (across the Ohio River from Louisville, Kentucky) to Chicago, passing through the area which became Mitchell in 1853. In 1857, the east-west Ohio and Mississippi Railway (later part of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad) was completed, as part of a link between Cincinnati and St. Louis, Missouri.

At the point where the two rail lines crossed, a new town was planned. As the O&M railroad was surveyed, the owners of the land arranged for one of the surveyors working on it, Ormsby McKnight Mitchel (1810-1862), a West Point graduate and professor at the University of Cincinnati, to lay out their new town in exchange for naming it for him. (The second "L" in Mitchell was added later). A native of Kentucky, Ormsby Mitchel grew up in Lebanon, Ohio, and was also an attorney and notable astronomer. He later became a Major General in the Union Army during the American Civil War (1861-1865), and is best known for ordering the raid that became famous as the Great Locomotive Chase. He was known as "Old Stars." General Mitchel died of yellow fever while serving in Beaufort, South Carolina.

The town was incorporated in 1864 and became a city in 1907. Mitchell hosted a number of manufacturers, including (in 1919) the wagon, truck and bus body enterprises of Ralph H. Carpenter which became known as the Carpenter Body Company. School bus body production continued until 1995.

In 1851, the Mitchell area was the birthplace of notorious outlaw and train robber Sam Bass (1851-1878). He was orphaned at age 13, but was apparently engaged in lawful activities until 1877, when he became a notorious icon of the "wildness" of the American Old West as he robbed banks, stagecoaches and railroad trains before being fatally wounded by Texas Rangers the following year. Despite Bass's short-lived criminal career, he is remembered as part of a robbery of gold on September 18, 1877 remains the largest robbery in Union Pacific Railroad's history.

We hope this website will be yet another valuable resource for you in contacting Greater Mitchell Chamber of Commerce members for the products and services you need.