Corn Palace is Gateway to South Dakota Tourist Attractions

Enlarge Image Image Gallery Grain reigns supreme at the Corn Palace in Mitchell, South Dakota. Cecil Hicks

The world has a number of notable luxury palaces that were traditionally built for kings and queens of some European countries, sultans and sheiks of the Mideast, or maharajas of India. While these mansions were largely showcases for the rich and famous and society’s aristocrats, there’s only one that was designed to honor a crop – the Corn Palace at Mitchell, South Dakota.

Mitchell (pop. 15,000) is a prairie town in eastern South Dakota surrounded by fields of corn. In 1892, residents of the area constructed a building and named it the Corn Palace to showcase the major crop grown in the region. It was their hope that the attention generated would attract more immigrant farmers to settle in the area.

While the original Corn Palace might have helped lure settlers, today’s palace (it’s the third, built in 1921) attracts about a half-million tourists and visitors annually. The Corn Palace’s Convention and Visitors Bureau helps promote activities in this uniquely designed structure with its mosque-like domes and towers that looks similar to a building designed for a Russian czar.

Troy Magnuson, assistant manager of the Corn Palace’s gift shop, says the Corn Palace is the “gateway to South Dakota’s major tourist attractions.” He says the bulk of the state’s visitors arrive by car from the east on Interstate 90, which runs just south of Mitchell. The Corn Palace is the first major state tourist destination for westbound travelers. The others are the Badlands National Monument, Wall Drug Store, Mount Rushmore and the Crazy Horse Monument.

The Corn Palace is made out of bricks and steel. Huge 3/4-inch plywood panels mounted on the palace’s exterior are transformed into large murals designed by artists using locally grown corn and grains.

According to Magnuson, all corn used in the murals is raised by a local farmer who annually plants several different colored corns. None of the corn used in the designs is dyed. Besides standard yellow-eared corn, the farmer grows three shades of red corn, three shades of brown corn, calico spotted Indian corn, blue corn, white corn and, recently, a variety of green corn.

A different theme is chosen by the Corn Palace Festival Committee each year. The 2009 theme is “America’s Destinations.” U.S. destinations selected include Washington, D.C., the Statue of Liberty, the Space Needle in Seattle, the Golden Gate Bridge, the St. Louis Arch, the Alamo in San Antonio, Texas, Hoover Dam, the Grand Canyon, the Kennedy Space Center, and three sites from South Dakota (Mount Rushmore, Crazy Horse Monument and the Corn Palace).

Some past themes were Everyday Heroes, 2008; South Dakota Youth; A Salute To Rodeo, 1995; South Dakota Birds; Lewis and Clark Bicentennial, 2000; Space Age, 1969; and Great Events.

In some years, nearly a half-million ears of corn are needed for the murals. The murals also require some 3,000 bushels of grains, grasses, wild oats, rye, straw and wheat that are mixed into the designs. Starting in the month of June, workers begin preparations for placement of the new grains and grasses on the panels.