Jack Mitchell

John James Mitchell Jr. (April 28, 1897 – April 7, 1985) was an American banker and a co-founder of United Airlines.

Early life He was born on April 28, 1897, in Chicago, the son of John James Mitchell (1853–1927), president of the Illinois Trust and Savings Bank and Illinois Merchants Trust Company. He was educated at Yale University, then served as an aviator with the US Navy in World War I. 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.

Career He co-founded National Air Transport, which evolved into United Airlines. He was a member of the board of directors of United Airlines from 1937 to 1979.

In 1979, he was inducted into the Cowboy Hall of Fame in Oklahoma City. Their combined wealth was estimated to be in excess of $120 million .

They lived in a Chicago penthouse, the El Mirador estate in Montecito, a beach house in Montecito, a ranch in the Santa Ynez Valley, and property they owned at Zaca Lake.

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. Chicago architect Arthur Heun designed new buildings and landscaped the grounds.

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. 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.

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.

Mitchell was living in Montecito at the time of his death on April 7, 1985.