Lavaca County history for the Mitchell family began with Bankston Mitchell, a slave born in Virginia who moved to the area with plantation owner and military scout Isaac Newton Mitchell. Bankston and Maria Mitchell had a son, Marshall Mitchell, who in 1913 built a Methodist Episcopal Church in Sweet Home. After the congregation declined, the church was taken apart and its lumber was used to build the Mitchell Homestead. Marshall married Malinda Mitchell before the birth of their first child in 1917, and in 1918 they bought 256 acres in Lavaca County and built a home. Two homes later burned, but a third house, again built with lumber from the church, still stands, with the church cornerstone in the front yard. In 1930 Marshall obtained land in Colorado County to build County Line School on the Lavaca-Colorado county line; it operated in the early 1930s before closing for lack of funding. He was also a beekeeper, sugar mill operator, winemaker, well digger, and carpenter who helped build many homes in Sweet Home and Yoakum. Malinda, a granddaughter of Hannah West, graduated from Prairie View State Normal and Industrial College in 1911 and taught for nearly 30 years in Sublime and Kendleton. Together they emphasized education for their children, and their descendants continue to maintain the homestead as part of that family history.