A history of the site would not be complete without a mention of the Mitchell family.  Archibald and Laura Mitchell moved to Green Lake from Iowa around 1861, and soon purchased the land that included Powell Spring – initially 60 acres, then later 220.  The Mitchells raised 12 children, with one of their sons being Stephen Decatur Mitchell. 

S.D. Mitchell (as he was known) later acquired the northern 80 acres of the property, the portion that included Mitchell Glen – which came to be called that due to his popularizing of this remarkable sandstone gorge. Mitchell was an avid collector of Native American artifacts, and he built a home and a museum adjacent to the Glen. He advertised the site via posters around the area, and invited tourists to come and visit his museum and the Glen for a small fee – reported to be 25 cents.

Besides displaying artifacts in his museum, he also had many geological samples (rocks) and a number of taxidermied birds and animals. Mitchell had also been an inventor for a time, and he received patents for items like a jointed oar-lock, a butter churn with a paddle, and an early washing machine.

Several members of the Mitchell family were buried in a small cemetery just to the north of Powell Creek and west of Mitchell Glen, but others, including S. D. Mitchell are interred at Hillside Cemetery in Ripon, near the college campus.

A Wisconsin State archaeologist, Charles E. Brown, took an interest in the Native American history of the Green Lake area, based on the mounds, caches and artifacts that had been found in the Green Lake area.  He exchanged extensive correspondence over several years with S. D. Mitchell, and the result of this collaboration was a lengthy article he wrote for the 1917 edition of The Wisconsin Archaeologist, entitled “The Antiquities of Green Lake.” 

Brown writes in the article: “The best collection of Green Lake archaeological material is that of Mr. S. D. Mitchell, a well-known resident of the locality. This is neatly arranged and housed in glass cases in a small frame building erected by its owner for this particular purpose, on his farm at Mitchell’s Glen, near the eastern end of the lake. This collection numbers at the present time over six thousand specimens. These were almost wholly assembled by Mr. Mitchell, an active and intelligent collector, from the numerous Indian camp and village sites and burial places on and near the shores of the lake.”

Based on input and measurements from Mitchell, Charles Brown drew a map that showed the location of James Powell’s log cabin trading post and his adjacent blacksmith’s shop – which he had constructed just west of Powell Spring and Powell Creek.  This sketch map provided great assistance to Green Lake Conservancy in ascertaining where these historic structures had been located back in the 1830’s.

S. D. Mitchell continued to live in his home at the Glen until his death in 1926 at the age of 81