Lyle Mitchell State Farm has a new home in uptown

Lyle Mitchell State Farm Agency has a new home off Nucleus Avenue at 31 8th Street West.

Mitchell bought building from Travis Feller, who had a bike shop there, back in July of 2020.

Mitchell took his time remodeling the building and moved in January. It has spacious ceilings and great views with natural light through its unique garage door facade.

Nationally, this is State Farm’s 100th anniversary year. It was founded by George Jacob “G.J.” Mecherle as a company that catered to farmers and rural residents, who were, at the time, being charged the same insurance rates as city dwellers.

Mecherle formed a company that was more fair to rural residents.

Mitchell has been with the company for 35 years. He started out at an agency in Bozeman in the 1990s and moved up to Columbia Falls in 1993 to start one here. His first office was in uptown originally, then moved to the what is now the Breck Law office, then when the real estate market hit hard times, he was able to buy the former Paul Wachholz Coldwell Banker office on Highway 2 in November 2009.

He then sold that building to Carla and Darin Fisher, the owners of Backslope Brewing, so they can continue the expansion of that business.

State Farm is the largest insurance carrier in the U.S. and is owned by its policyholders, which is makes it unique and rather resistant to corporate takeovers.

As such, folks with good driving records enjoy good rates, Mitchell noted.

The company also recognizes that bad things can happen to good people, so if someone with a clean record has a fender-bender, the company doesn’t raise their rates.

“Things happen. We don’t throw them under the bus,” Mitchell said.

He said State Farm grew more last year than it did in 20 years. It even reduced insurance rates during the pandemic, as people drove less.

The challenges as of late are the cost of new and used cars.

At 67, Mitchell said he has no plans to retire, though he doesn’t work as much as he used to. He now takes Fridays off and is working on getting his pilot’s license, he said. He wants to fly into backcountry locations. He has three brothers that are also pilots.

Mitchell and his wife, Carla, have two grown daughters, Sarah and Molly and four grandchildren.

There are four other employees at the agency including Michelle Tu, Jana Martindale, Carolyn Hall and Melanie Pickar. Pickar has been with the agency nearly as long as it’s been in Columbia Falls.