Mitchell Town was an early settlement about 1.5 miles north of here across Bluewater Creek near CR76, named for the Mitchell family who settled there. Samuel Herston owned land in the area in 1833, Eli Joiner owned land north of there in 1834, and Jack Phillips lived there in 1831 before later owning 198 acres and operating a gristmill on Mill Creek. The Robert Wilson family settled on the east side of Mill Creek, and Stewart Wilson built a two-story dwelling in 1836 that still stands on CR92; he operated a gin there before the Civil War. John Robert Mitchell, a descendant of Robert and Mary Mitchell, who settled near Lexington around 1818, joined Captain O’Neal’s Calhoun Guard at Center Star in 1861 and was promoted to captain in Co. A, 35th Alabama Infantry. He and his wife, Edna Caroline Phillips, established their home north of Bluewater Creek, where he farmed and operated a gristmill. Their son, James Jim Mason Mitchell, built a two-story home on CR33 near CR76 and from 1899 until 1916 operated a gristmill, general merchandise store, blacksmith shop, sawmill, and cotton gin. Early community institutions also developed there: Gabriel Butler built the first Bluewater Primitive Baptist Church in 1823 on his land near the present-day Butler Cemetery, and the church later moved to Mitchell Town near Bluewater Cemetery across from Mitchell’s Mill, which was established in 1836. Around 1913 the church moved to CR33 across from Mitchell’s Mill, and in 1940 it was rebuilt near Blue Water Cemetery, where it stands today. An early school met in the Bluewater Primitive Baptist Church, then moved to the Missionary Baptist Church near Dog Branch along what is now CR50 and became known as Dog Branch School. In 1913 a nearby site was donated for a one-room school called New Hope School, where grades 1 through 6 were taught by one teacher until around 1935. Commercial trade in Mitchell Town eventually declined and businesses closed; the cotton gin remained the last visible reminder of the community’s commercial past, operating until the mid-1950s and collapsing in 1960, while the old home built by Jim Mitchell was vacated in the early 1960s and torn down in 1996 as one of the last remnants of the once thriving business community.