Henry Clay Mitchell

Term of Office,  1921-1933

Henry Clay Mitchell was born February 14, 1895 in Santa Rosa County. Mitchell married and had two children. He taught in the Santa Rosa school system for three years and then was appointed as a deputy sheriff under Sheriff John H. Harvell.  He served as a deputy from 1918 to 1920. Mitchell was elected sheriff in 1920 with his first of three consecutive terms commencing in January 1921.  According to the International Sheriff’s Journal, Mitchell was the youngest sheriff in the nation at the time of his election.

During his time in office, the gangland-style executions of S.G. “Babe” Collins and Aubrey Gainer, prominent citizens of Santa Rosa County, took place. The Gainer murder was followed by the shotgun murder of Collins, brother of former Sheriff John H. Collins. The Collins murder defeated any hope that Sheriff Mitchell had in resolving the Gainer murder since Collins had become the prime suspect. The murders entailed countless hours of police work by Mitchell and his deputies. They remain unsolved to this day.

In 1936, Mitchell was appointed Supervisor of the Florida State Beverage Department. He later became District Supervisor and then Chief Law Enforcement Officer. At the request of three consecutive Florida governors, Mitchell also worked diligently on special investigations concerning cases of murder throughout the state. In 1946, he accepted a position as Chief Criminal Investigator of Escambia County and set up the Investigative Department of the sheriff’s office.

Mitchell died October 29, 1985, survived by his wife and two children.