Moorish revival building is decorated with crop art; the murals and designs covering the building are made from corn and other grains, and a new design is constructed each year

How to Get There

From Sioux Falls Get on I-29 N from W 12th St. Follow I-90 W to S Burr St in Mitchell. Take exit 332 from I-90 W. Continue on S Burr St. Drive to N Main St.

Overview

The Corn Palace, commonly advertised as The World's Only Corn Palace and the Mitchell Corn Palace, is a multi-purpose arena/facility located in Mitchell, South Dakota. The Moorish Revival building is decorated with crop art; the murals and designs covering the building are made from corn and other grains, and a new design is constructed each year. The Corn Palace is a popular tourist destination, visited by up to 500,000 people each year.

The Corn Palace serves the community as a venue for concerts, sports events, exhibits and other community events. Each year, the Corn Palace is celebrated with a citywide festival, the Corn Palace Festival. Historically it was held at harvest time in September, but recently it has been held at the end of August.

History

In the late 19th Century, a number of cities on the Great Plains constructed "crop palaces" (also known as "grain palaces") to promote themselves and their products. As the idea succeeded, it spread, including: a Corn Palace in Sioux City, Iowa, that was active from 1887-1891; a Corn Palace in Gregory, South Dakota; a Grain Palace in Plankinton, South Dakota; and a Bluegrass Palace in Creston, Iowa. From 1887 to 1930, at least thirty-four corn palaces were built across the Midwest United States; only the Mitchell Corn Palace has remained intact.

The original Mitchell Corn Palace (known as "The Corn Belt Exposition") was built in 1892 to showcase the rich soil of South Dakota and encourage people to settle in the area. It was a wooden castle structure on Mitchell's Main Street. Russian-style onion domes and Moorish minarets were added in 1937, giving the Palace the distinctive appearance that it has today.

Mural Construction

Twelve naturally-occurring shades of corn are grown by local farmers to create the artwork. Artists' drawings are transferred to black tar paper labeled with codes corresponding to colors, providing a "corn-by-numbers" pattern showing where each colored cob should be nailed. Corn cobs are split in two lengthwise and nailed to the exterior of the building, using approximately 1.5 million nails and 325,000 ears of corn.

This article uses material from the Wikipedia article "Corn Palace", which is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share-Alike License 3.0