Civic Leader Robert Mitchell, 90, Dies

Robert Mitchell, a founder and eventual president of Consolidated Rock Products Co. and a community supporter whose civic duties resulted in the building of the Los Angeles County Jail and the condemnation of the manner in which county architectural contracts were awarded, died Thursday.

Mitchell, 90, died at Hoag Memorial Hospital in Newport Beach. He had retired as ConRock’s board chairman in 1968.

Mitchell was the oldest child and only son of eight children born to a Mormon couple in Salt Lake City, Utah. He worked while in high school to help support his family and then served with the 1st Utah Cavalry in France in World War I.

After the war he came to Los Angeles and helped form Union Rock Co. which merged in 1929 with Consolidated Rock Products Co., known since its 1984 merger with California Portland Cement Co. as CalMat Co.

During Mitchell’s lengthy tenure, ConRock provided much of the sand and gravel that provided the cement for the skyline of a modern Los Angeles.

Concurrently he served with various veterans’ groups, was chairman of the Los Angeles County Citizens Economy and Efficiency Committee which in 1969 found that political favoritism was involved in the awarding of architectural contracts; headed the Jail Advisory Committee that in 1959 voted to build a 3,300-inmate facility east of Union Station for $22 million and was a director of the state Chamber of Commerce.

He also was a former president of the Merchants & Manufacturers Assn. and head of both the Los Angeles Metropolitan Traffic Assn. and the Citizens Traffic and Transportation Committee of Los Angeles.

Mitchell was highly honored within his own industry and was the only executive ever to serve as president of both the National Sand and Gravel Assn. and the National Ready Mixed Concrete Assn.

His survivors include his wife, Irma; two daughters; four grandchildren and 12 great-grandchildren.