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Mitchell - The Corn PalaceJul 9, 2008
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The Corn Palace in 1892
The Corn Palace in 1912
The Corn Palace Today
What better way to spend a stop-over evening than visiting the world’s only Corn Palace in Mitchell, South Dakota.
The Corn Palace Story
There has been a Corn Palace in Mitchell, South Dakota since 1892. Mitchell was a small, 12 year old city when the first Corn Palace was built. The $64,000 dollar question is “whatever would possess someone to cover a building with corn? Well, the city fathers wanted to put Mitchell on the map.
In 1805, when Lewis and Clark traveled through the northern plains, they wrote in their journals that this area was the Great American Desert suitable only for buffalo. Surely, they wrote, no man could ever make a living farming here. Wanting to prove Lewis and Clark wrong, as well as entice settlers to the area, the Corn Belt Real Estate Association built the first Corn Palace to showcase all of the crops that could be grown in the rich Dakota soil.
Along with the new Corn Palace, a festival was planned to be held in late September to celebrate the harvest. Entertainment was brought in and representatives from surrounding counties exhibited crops grown and goods manufactured in their county. The festival celebrated the fertility of the land and the productivity of its people. To this day, over 100 years later, the tradition of the Corn Palace Festival continues.
The first Corn Palace, built in 1892, was a 100 x 66 foot wooden structure, and was constructed for a total cost of $2,976.48.
By 1905, the first Corn Palace had become such a success that the building was outgrown. With plans ready for a new building, the old Palace was torn down and in only 55 days, the new 125 x 142 foot building was completed. It was built for a total cost of $15,000. The first two Corn Palace buildings were actually wooden structures having no electricity and dirt floors. Being built entirely of wood enabled them to be decorated from top to bottom.
In 1919, a concern for fire safety created laws governing buildings and their use. Large groups of people could no longer congregate in wooden structures. By 1921, the third and present Corn Palace had been built, made entirely of steel and brick. This new building was designed to be Mitchell’s multi-use facility. Today, the Corn Palace not only hosts over 500,000 tourists each summer, but is used by the community the rest of the year for basketball games, stage shows, trade shows, proms and graduations – even the Shrine Circus!
Decorating The Corn Palace
Each year the Corn Palace is redecorated sporting a new theme. Exceptions to this tradition occurred during the Depression, World War I & II Era’s, and Mitchell’s Centennial year. The decorative materials for the Corn Palace are all native corn, grasses and grains of South Dakota. The new theme is selected each year by the Corn Palace Committee along with the artist Cherie Ramsdell. Approximately 20 local residents are hired each summer to redecorate the Palace.
The process begins in the early summer when all of the grasses and grains are removed from the building and replaced in new geometric designs. 3,000 bushels of milo, rye, oat heads and sour dock are tied into bundles and nailed to the building.
In late summer, when the corn matures, the mural pictures are replaced. The new scenes are drawn on black roofing paper and are marked as to which of the eleven different colors of corn goes where. Think of it as a corn-by-number project! The roofing paper is then tacked onto the Palace and the crew, using tall scaffolding, literally nails each ear of corn in its designated space. About 275,000 ears of corn are sawed in half and nailed flat-side to the building. It takes approximately three months to redecorate the Palace at an annual cost of over $100,000 each and every year.
In case you were wondering; when the old corn is removed, that corn is turned into Ethenol!
On a Personal Note: We have traveled 8,400 miles on our journey so far. It looks like we will break the 10,000 mark.
