The whole of South Dakota (and North Dakota) doesn’t have that much to show in terms of tourism. I suppose they might even be jealous of Wyoming, which has Yellowstone, Red Gulch, and the Badlands just to name a few famous national parks. Just like Wall, Mitchell is the kind of place that had to create a name for itself and advertise it all across the busy interstate. What did this flyover town do? It built a corn palace.
Yep, I never thought I’d see those two words together in that order, but Mitchell has built the world’s largest (probably the only) building covered with art made from stalks of corn. At first, the highway billboards make the place sound like a tourist trap, but when you consider that the main crop planted in that area is corn, it makes a little more sense, albeit very little. Inside the building, there is a food stall selling all sorts of corny foods like corn on the cob and corndogs as well as various corn memorabilia up for sale.
Right next to the corn palace is an out of place medieval castle (of course it’s fake) with a walk through Bible world. If I didn’t know what was going on, I might’ve thought that the gift shops were trying to one-up each other. Visit, or maybe don’t visit, it’s alright but there’s not too much to miss.
