Potomac Bids Final Farewell to Beloved Resident

Clyde Eastham Mitchell, the “Mitch” of Mitch and Bill’s Sunoco in Potomac, died from heart failure Oct. 18 in Rockville, the Potomac Almanac reports. He was 86.

According to the Almanac report, Mitchell was a member of Bethesda’s famed Eastham family, founders of Eastham Exxon on Wisconsin Avenue. Following three years of service in the Pacific during World War II, Mitchell join his uncle at Eastham Exxon before moving out to Potomac to start his own businesses with Bill Schumacher, the “Bill” of Mitch and Bill’s Sunoco.

In 1949, the two opened Mitch and Bill’s ESSO – a former U.S. brand name for ExxonMobile -- on the corner of Falls and River roads in Potomac, where they were well known and active in the community through the 1980s. Later the business would switch parent companies from ExxonMobile to the Sunoco store it is today.

Family, former employees and residents of Potomac fondly remember Mitchell as a beloved and well-respected community member. Read the full report on the Potomac Almanac.