A visit to the Corn Palace in Mitchell, South Dakota, may bring to mind the old paint-by-numbers kits you did as a kid, but the building is a beautiful and unique example of folk art using local prairie products in a surprisingly sophisticated way.
The building wasn't open when we visited, so we weren't able to go inside for a tour or to visit the gift store. We were, however, lucky enough to be there at the right time of year to catch a glimpse of some of the work in progress with the seasonal changing of the exterior murals.
Folks in Mitchell established the city's original Corn Palace in 1892, just three years after South Dakota achieved statehood and a dozen years after settlers established Mitchell. The building served as a place to showcase the abundant harvest of the area in hopes of attracting more settlers to Mitchell.
In 1905, the people of Mitchell rebuilt the Corn Palace as part of an ultimately unsuccessful effort to unseat Pierre, South Dakota, as the state's capital.
A third version Corn Palace replaced the 1905 building in 1921. It was fun to discover that the Chicago architectural firm of Rapp and Rapp designed this building, the one that still exists today as a community center and multipurpose building (the same firm that designed the beautiful Warner Theater in Erie, Pennsylvania, that I wrote about earlier this year).
The Moorish Revival onion domes and minarets were a 1937 addition to the building.
The building itself is reinforced concrete, but it is the changing exterior that draws a reported 500,000 visitors each year to check out the Corn Palace.
Each year, the process of creating a new exterior for the Corn Palace starts with the selection of a theme by the Corn Palace Festival Committee, which asks a local artist to design the murals.
The artist transfers their design to carefully coded and detailed illustrations on black roofing paper. Look closely at this photo, and you can see each section marked with a specific color.
Meanwhile, local farmers grow the 13 different colored corn crops, as well as the native grasses, straw, and wheat used to create the murals.
Most years, the new exterior requires 275,000 ears of corn and a crew of about 20 workers to complete as workers dismantle last year's murals and install the new year's themed exterior by hand. Work on the project generally starts in late August and continues into September as crops become available for harvest and use.
There are a few exceptions, like 2007, when I took these photos. A severe drought in 2006 created a shortage of crops, so the exterior underwent a less large-scale update with a few new murals and retaining the prior year's rodeo theme.
Fortunately, crops came back strong enough to support creating brand-new corn-art exteriors in subsequent years, with Travel Through the Ages as this year's theme.
There have been other corn palaces, but this, "The World's Only Corn Palace", is the last one still existing and carrying on with this traditional form of folk art.
The Corn Palace plays host to a variety of events that include concerts, school proms, and sporting events. Basketball teams from Dakota Wesleyan University and the Mitchell High School Kernels play home games there. USA Today listed the venue as one of the Top 10 places to play high school basketball, and called it the "Boston Gardens of the Midwest".
The Corn Palace offers free guided tours of the building from Memorial Day in late May through Labor Day in early September.
Want to see some vintage pictures of the Corn Palace throughout the years? Check out the Arcadia book, Mitchell's Corn Palace by Jan Cerney
You can also virtually visit Mitchell's Corn Palace on Facebook or check it out on Twitter.
© Dominique King 2010 All rights reserved
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