| Jack Mitchell | |
| Birth Name: | John James Mitchell Jr. |
| Birth Date: | April 28, 1897 |
| Birth Place: | Chicago, Illinois, U.S. |
| Death Place: | Montecito, California, U.S. |
| Education: | Yale University |
| Occupation: | Banker |
| Known For: | co-founded United Airlines |
| Boards: | United Airlines (1937-1979) |
| Spouse: | |
| Children: | 3 |
| Father: | John James Mitchell |
| Relatives: | J. Ogden Armour (father-in-law) |
John James Mitchell Jr. (April 28, 1897 – April 7, 1985) was an American banker and a co-founder of United Airlines.
He was born on April 28, 1897, in Chicago,[1] the son of John James Mitchell (1853–1927), president of the Illinois Trust and Savings Bank and Illinois Merchants Trust Company.[2] He was educated at Yale University, then served as an aviator with the US Navy in World War I.[1]
Mitchell's brother, William "Bill" Mitchell, became the director of Texaco and the Continental Illinois National Bank.[3] William married Chicago socialite Ginevra King—the first love of writer F. Scott Fitzgerald—and inspired the character of Thomas "Tom" Buchanan in The Great Gatsby.[4] [5]
He co-founded National Air Transport, which evolved into United Airlines.[6] He was a member of the board of directors of United Airlines from 1937 to 1979.[1]
In 1929 Mitchell bought a large property on Zaca Lake near Santa Barbara, California, and named it Rancho Juan y Lolita.[6]
Together with some friends, he organized a group Los Rancheros Visitadores, which held annual California horseback treks, attracting over 700 riders.[6] Mitchell was the first president and led the group for 25 years.[6] Members and guests would include Edward Borein, Thomas M. Storke, Clark Gable, and Walt Disney.[6] In 1938, Los Rancheros acquired the Covarrubias Adobe from historian and author John Southworth for $15,000, and they undertook reconstruction and strengthening of the house in 1940.[7]
In 1979, he was inducted into the Cowboy Hall of Fame in Oklahoma City.[6]
Mitchell lived at Rancho Juan y Lolita until the early 1960s, when he sold it to the actor James Stewart.[6]
In 1921, Mitchell married J. Ogden Armour's only child Lolita at the family's estate in the upper-class enclave of Lake Forest, Illinois.[1] [8] Their combined wealth was estimated to be in excess of $120 million . Armour was then the second-richest man in the US, after John D. Rockefeller.[9]
They lived in a Chicago penthouse, the El Mirador estate in Montecito, a beach house in Montecito, a 12000acres ranch in the Santa Ynez Valley, and property they owned at Zaca Lake.[10]
In 1916, the Armours started buying land in Montecito including what had been the Charles Frederick Eaton 1887 estate, Riso Rivo, and by 1918, had and named the new estate El Mirador.[9] Chicago architect Arthur Heun designed new buildings and landscaped the grounds.[9]
With the help of landscape designer Elmer Awl and 30 gardeners, they redeveloped El Mirador into "one of the most fabulous estates in Montecito", with a formal Italian garden, an underground grotto with stalactites, a dairy, poultry farm, vegetable gardens, avocado and lemon orchards, a small zoo with bears, a wallaby and macaws, a tea pavilion floating on a man-made lake, and an amphitheater seating 1,000 people. The couple divorced in 1941, by which time "financial constraints" had led to reduced upkeep of the estate.[1] Lolita lived at El Mirador up until her death in 1976.
In 1942, Mitchell married Olga Voronseva Varchavshia, a Russian immigrant and interior decorator, and they settled in Santa Barbara.[1]
He had a daughter, Lolita "Tita" M. Lanning of Santa Barbara; and sons John J. Mitchell Jr. of Santa Barbara and James J. Mitchell of Mountain View, California.[1]
Mitchell was living in Montecito at the time of his death on April 7, 1985.