The Corn Palace in Mitchell, South Dakota, is one of the most visited tourist attractions in the United States. Built with reinforced concrete and brick, each spring the palace is covered with tons of corn, grains, and grasses to create large murals. Every spring, residents and tourists flock here to admire and explore the beauty of this Corn Palace.
Every year the Corn Palace is decorated with a different theme. In addition to the spring festival, the palace also holds events throughout the year such as “corn threshing” in July, the corn festival in August and the Polka festival in September, which attract the attention of many tourists.
Corn Palace in 2008
The Corn Palace was built in 1892 as part of a six-day festival celebrating a successful harvest. The idea was to decorate the palace with corn to showcase the rich land of South Dakota and encourage people to settle.
Murals at the Corn Palace
After the success of the annual Corn Palace festivities, the townspeople invested in and built a larger Corn Palace in 1905. But it soon became too small for Mitchell's growing population. A larger palace was erected and opened in time for the 1921 festival season.
Local artists redecorated the Palace with naturally colored and eye-catching corn cobs
Every year, local artists redecorate the Palace with naturally colored and eye-catching corn cobs, and they also use local grains and grasses to enrich their work, such as flax, rye, wheat, oats, millet and straw.
Corn Palace 2016
In addition to the annual corn festival, the Palace is used for various events including exhibitions, dances, theatrical performances, meetings, banquets, proms, graduation arenas for Mitchell High School and Dakota Wesleyan University as well as county, regional and state basketball tournaments.
