MITCHELL, Kenneth Frederic "Ken"

MITCHELL, BAIRD, EICHEMAN

Posted By: Sharon R Becker (email)
Date: 11/11/2014 at 02:31:52

The Globe Gazette
Mason City, Cerro Gordo County, Iowa
Saturday, October 12, 1940, Page 16

THEY STARTED HERE
No. 30 in a Mason City Series of Success Stories

KEN MITCHELL, Landscape Architect

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The story of Kenneth Mitchell is a tale which proves that talent, hard work and perserverance are still the qualities that go to make success, for they are the principal factors in the former Mason Cityan's rise to the high position he occupies in the field of landscape architecture.

Many Mason Cityans know Ken Mitchell well, for it was only 16 yeqars ago that he was a likable Mason City high school youngster with a definite flair for art of a creative type.

Since that time he has studied his chosen work not only in college but ever since, and by dint of real ability combined with hard work and a faculty of sticking to a job in spite of its difficulties, he has made a niche for himself among the top men in his field as resident architect at the federal government's Rocky Mountain national park.

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Ken was born in Mason City, June 21, 1905, the son of Mr. and Mrs. F. G. Mitchell. He was reared here and in Lime Creek township, where he attended school through the eighth grade before enrolling at Mason City high school.

Mr. and Mrs. Mitchell still live in Mason City, making their home at 223 West State street.

A close chum of Bil Baird in his boyhood days, Ken Mitchell often used to work with the now outstanding marionette showman in the presentation of shows in the barn behind the Mitchell home. He made many of the puppets and showed such talent in this line that Bil once asked him to come into marionette work with him. But landscape work was to Ken Mitchell as what marionettes were to Bil Baird and both men went on to success in their respective fields.

As a boy Ken early showed a definite interest in art for his mother is a fine artist and her love for beauty and her ability to set down with pencil or brush what she sees was continued in him.

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As a Mason City high school pupil Ken was a fine student and put his art learnings to a practical test by working on teh school annual, the Masonian.

He was graduated from the local high school in 1924 and in the fall of that year matriculated at Iowa State college, where he took up the study of his present work, landscape architecture.

As a student at Iowa State, Ken worked to help himself through school, mostly as an employe (sic) of the Iowa extension school. This work was in the line he desired,and he worked on landscaping consolidated schools and similar projects throughout the state.

And even when he was on the campus he tried to combine his work with his studies, for at one time he took care of part of the spacious school lawns and handled the work about a large formal garden.

* * *
At Iowa State the Mason City youth studied under Prof. P. H. Elwood and before long attracted the notice of that department head as a student with intelligence, creative imagination, and a fine flair for putting his ideas on paper.

Kenb's art ability put him in good stead, for it gave him the ability many fine landscape architects do not have - that of putting their ideas down well. The Mason City youth was [an] expert at sketching an d and often would pull a pencil and pad from his pocket to draw some object or person which particularly took his fancy.

A member of the Sigma Chi fraternity at Ames, Ken was active in fraternity work and was art editor of the Green Gander for two years. In his senior year he served as art editor of the school's annual, "The Bomb." And in one of the campus elections he was named head cheer leader.

And it was while he was at Ames that Ken met the girl who was later to become Mrs. Mitchell, Grace Eicheman of Bettnedorf. The couple was married in 1930 and has two children, K. Lee Mitchell and Nancy Ann Mitchell.

* * *
The Mason Cityan finished his work at Iowa State in 1928, but not until he had shown his ability by winning honors in several landscaping contests conducted on a national scale.

This outstanding work won him a scholarship at the Foundation for Architects and Landscape Architects at Lake Forest, Ill., and placed him at a school where the cream of the country's student architects are given an opportunity to do a little practical work and at the same time to meet and exchange ideas with other promising men in creative art lines.

Ken got much practical work at Lake Forest, working on the huge estates in that area, but it was not until he accepted a position with Paul B. Riis, one of the country's five leading landscape architects, that he received the six months of practical experience needed before he could get his Iowa State college degree in landscape architecture.

For a time the young architect did work on small estates for Mr. Riis, but then when his employer became director of the Allegheny county park systems at Pittsburg, Ken went to Pennsylvania with him.

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The Allegheny park system had just been increased by approximately 4,000 acres and in a short time Ken Mitchell had risen to a highly responsible position in the handling of the two new projects.

Now when a county the size of Allegheny county needs a park, it needs something big. And that's what the two sections of its 4,000 acres were. In one of them, the former Mason Cityan designed and handled the architectural work for its $350,000 swimming pool. In addition, he was in charge of the landscaping work for both parks. Ten designers and engineers of the drafting room and the entire department as well as all field and construction work was in his charge.

In 1932 political changes caused Ken to return to Ames where he worked for a time at his chosen profession before going to Council Bluffs to be superintendent of a CCC camp there. In a short time he was transferred back to Ames as landscape architect for the Iowa state parks system, working on emergency conservation.

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From that time until 1936 the rising young landscape architect worked on many of the Iowa state parks, including that at Pilot Knob and the Backbone state park in Delaware county.

This work attracted attention to him and in 1936 Ken Mitchell was transferred to the regional office in Omaha, from which the state park work of the federal government is handled for 14 states.

During the years that followed Ken Mitchell worked on plans and designs for the parksin the states covered by his regional office. One of the projects which he completed just prior to his latest shift upward was the driveway and parking layout at the Rushmore memorial in the Black Hills of South Dakota.

Another project upon which he did a great deal of work is the famous Red Rock natural amphitheater, larger than the famed Hollywood Bowl. The Red Rock amphitheater is located near Denver, Colo.

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And so it went until last May when the former Mason Cityan transferred from state to national park work and was named resident landscape engineer in one of Uncle Sam's greatest outdoor playgrounds, Rocky Mountain national park.

There he is in charge of all designing and landscape work. In addition, he spends a certain amount of his time working at the Dinosaur national park in Utah, time at Scott's Bluff, Nebr., and some time at Fort Laramie, Wyo.

But the major part of his work is in the 259,411 acres of wondrous scenic beauty that comprises Rocky Mountain national park. The territory, 405 square miles of it, is sometimes known as Estes park.

And that is the story of Ken Mitchell. Starting at the bottom on rural school jobs, then caring for the lawn and formal gardens at Iowa State, he has worked up through small estate projects to county parks, to state parks work and finally to national parks.

His climb has been rapid and he now stands at the top, for there is no bigger project anywhere than one of Uncle Sam's parks.

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NOTE: Kenneth Frederic Mitchell, born June 21, 1905, died on March 24, 1980. Grace Alberta (Eichman) Mitchell was born September 26, 1907, and died on May 7, 1980. They were interred at Forest Lawn Memorial Park, Garden of Honor, Glendale, California.

Photograph courtesy of Globe-Gazette

Transcription and note by Sharon R. Becker, May of 2014

Cerro Gordo Biographies maintained by Lynn Diemer-Mathews.
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