Mitchell, South Dakota: Corn Palace and Dakota Discovery Museum 6/17/2019

There is not a lot to do in Mitchell, South Dakota, but we still spent the morning sightseeing. We liked the Dakota Discovery Museum on the Dakota Wesleyan University. The University is a small 4-year university, founded in 1885, affiliated with the United Methodist Church with less than 800 students.

The Dakota Discovery Museum was founded by an organization called the Friends of the Middle Border, which dates back to 1939. The museum’s goal is to preserve and educate visitors on the art, history and culture of the Dakota’s . Exihibits cover Plains Indians, farming and ranching, the early days of the Dakota Territory and historic quillwork and beadwork. There are guided tours availble but not on the day we visited. However, we still visited dthe four historic buildings; a 1914 train depot, an 1885 one-room schoolhouse, a Methodist church bult in 1908 and the restored 1886 home of Louis Beckwirth, one of the founders of the Corn Palace. All of the buildings were open except for the 1886 home.

1914 Train Depot from the town of Dimock. Charles A. Johnson was the only agent to work in this depot. He was also the Postmaster in the same building

Baggage wagon inside the railway display at the Dakota Discovery Museym

Dinner menu on the 1927 Chicago to Seattle “Olympian” I will take the Lobster, Crab or Shrimp cocktail for $.35 and the steak dinner for $1.25 with a Cherry Sundae for $.20

Freight wagon in the outdoor exhibits at Dakota Discovery Museum

This looked like a deliverey wagon at the outdoor exhibit at Dakota Discovery Museum

After we left the museum, we went shopping at Cabelas and then visited the Corn Palace. Randy and his parents saw the Corn Palace in 1966 when he made his first trip to Alaska. We stopped here on our family trip to the Canadian Rockies in the early 90s, but this is the first time we actually went inside. Photographs from previous years are displayed as well as the artwork used in the corn designs. Inside is a small theater where they hold concerts and different events. They have more permament corn designs inside in the theater section. Today they had booths set up where tourists could buy trinkets or souveniors. Randy and I both thought this year’s designs were not as intricate as ones from previous years. Today they were installing borders around the corn designs made out of bundled grasses. We asked why the designs were incomplete and found out that they do the corn designs in the fall after the corn is harvested and then replace the grass borders in the early summer when the grasses are available.

Workers were putting up the grass border on the front and sides of the Corn Palace. According to the visitor center guide, the decorations are done in 2 phases. Corn in the fall, with grasses done in early summer.

Decorations on the side of the Corn Palace

USS South Dakota 2019–Decoration on the front of the Corn Palace.

What the Corn Palace looked like in 1966 when Randy visited the first time: Reminders of the Past: With another drought and corn shortage, two decorative exterior murals were elminated and the others reduced in size. Nostalgic tourists connected over murals of square dancing, cattle branding and a farm with a windmill. Artist Oscar Howe was awarded the Waite Phillips Trophy for outstanding contributions to American Indian art from the Philbrook Art Center in Tulsa, OK

I will be glad when we move on from Mitchell. The campground is clean and pretty, but there is not much else to do in Mitchell. There are only 3 channels on the TV where so far I have only seen 70s TV programs. I had thought we could spend some time in the pool today, but it turned cool so that is out. I can’t even do laundry as the site we got has no sewer connections. We were surprised that there are 3 Super C’s in this campground. There is a Nexus at the end of our road and the couple next to us have a Renegade Verona. They are moving tomorrow to the same campground that we are so it nice to meet people as we go!