History

Sunset Beach Auto Salvage it was not always an auto salvage yard. In the very beginning it was a sand query, and then from 1939 to 1962 it was a very popular swimming beach. Patrons were charged a quarter to swim in the pond that was formally the old quarry. The pond is about 7 acres and even to this day it has a very nice sandy beach area and a joining 38 acres of land making up Sunset Beach. My grandfather, Lee Mitchell, was very successful building one of Iowa’s largest transmission repair shops, Mitchell transmission, which started out as one of Des Moines’s first auto salvage yards. My grandfather and his brother Dick begin working on building a transmission business, after selling and installing used transmissions for his customers at the salvage yard.

Hours of Operation