Mitchell is a city in Marion Township, Lawrence County, Indiana, United States.

At this location in Lawrence County, the Chicago, Indianapolis and Louisville Railroad, better known by the shorter name of "the Monon", was built as a north-south line from New Albany to Chicago, passing through the area which became Mitchell in 1853.

As the O&M railroad was surveyed, the owners of the land arranged for one of the surveyors, Ormsby McKnight Mitchel (1810–1862), a West Point graduate and professor at the University of Cincinnati, to plat their new town in exchange for naming it for him.

[citation needed]) 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.

General Mitchel died of yellow fever while serving in Beaufort, South Carolina.

[citation needed] In 1851, the Mitchell area was the birthplace of 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 an 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.

A mechanical engineering graduate of Purdue University, he joined the United States Air Force and was selected as a member of NASA's Project Mercury space program.

Gus Grissom was the second American to fly in space on Liberty Bell 7 and also flew aboard Gemini 3.

He died in a launch pad fire at Kennedy Space Center in Florida during a training exercise for Apollo 1 on January 27, 1967.

The town developed an Urban Enterprise Zone, and industrial park, and at the end of the century, was working to attract new businesses and industry while also capitalizing on its heritage through antique shops and tourism.