For a real piece of Americana, a road trip to Mitchell, South Dakota is sure to be memorable. Located in southeastern South Dakota, Mitchell is about one-hour, due west of Sioux Falls along I-90. You need to get off the highway to see its main attraction at the corner of N. Main and W. 6th, but that two-mile detour will be well worth it.
The Mitchell Corn Palace is a building like no other in the world. With Moorish onion domes and minarets atop a building covered in corn cobs, this is an ever changing piece of artwork. Each year, the murals are redesigned and replaced with fresh corn. The artwork has been done annually by local artist Cherie Ramsdell since 2003.
The huge mural patterns are drawn onto a black background and then corn artists begin filling the “corn-by-number” shapes with any of 12 different colored corn cobs grown especially for the Corn Palace. The cobs are split with specially adapted circular saws, nailed in place with air-nailers and trimmed with sharp hatchets.
3,000 bushels of rye, oat heads and sour dock (native grasses) are used along with 275,000 ears of corn to adorn the building. The annual process of redecorating the palace goes on all summer long.
Built in 1892 to attract settlers to South Dakota, the Corn Palace is now home to the city hall and a large arena – home for Dakota Wesleyan University Tigers and Mitchell High School Kernels basketball teams. (What else would you call your home town team, other than the Kernels?) It is also the site of concerts, trade shows & stage shows featuring some of the country’s best entertainers.
Open all year, hours change with the seasons, so be sure to check ahead at their Website: www.cornpalace.com. Admittance is always free. Right across the street is the official Corn Palace Gift Shop with a raft of “corny” gift ideas. Just outside, you can pose for a picture with “Cornelius” the bigger than life mascot for the Corn Palace.
Mouse over the lower right corner and click on the arrow to see full-screen version
Mitchell was named 2011 Community of the Year in South Dakota. Before you go, you can learn more about Mitchell at their Website: http://www.VisitMitchell.com.
To watch the corn being selected and installed, check this video by videofilmik: http://youtu.be/k4MpJF5EJQY
To see some of the history of the Corn Palace, check out this video by Andrew Knowles:
See all there is to do in Mitchell, SD in this video “One of a Kind” by CornPalace: http://youtu.be/6CKbxmcD1Ig