MITCHELL, South Dakota – Corn is king in this part of the Midwest.
Driving through Central Kansas and Central Nebraska in the summer provides a graphic panorama of the importance of corn and the magnitude of this golden treasure.
The City of Mitchell is home to the Corn Palace, billed as “The World’s Only Corn Palace.”
Who would want to drive this far to see a Corn Palace?
Surprisingly, about half a million tourists flock to Mitchell every year to see the agricultural museum. In 1892, 12 years after the founding of Mitchell, the museum was started on Main Street.
The 3,000 citizens (now more than 15,000) of Mitchell wanted an appropriate venue to hold a fall festival and celebrate the harvest season. The Corn Palace Festival is held annually in August. This year the festival is August 21-25.
The Corn Palace will host country singer Clint Black on August 23 and country singer Trace Adkins on August 24. Blood, Sweat and Tears will have a concert on August 25.
A replacement Corn Palace was built in 1905 but it was too confined, so a third Corn Palace went up in 1919. The current facility was finished in 1921.
Visitors to the Corn Palace are surprised to find a full-sized basketball court – complete with bleachers – at the interior of the building.
According to cornpalace.com, the building is “considered to have the finest basketball arena in the Upper Midwest area.”
In the 1930s, the exterior of the Corn Palace was remodeled with minarets and kiosks of Moorish designs to make it look more like the original building.
Now, the Corn Palace hosts dances, exhibits, stage shows, banquets, proms and graduation ceremonies for Mitchell High School and Dakota Wesleyan University. And there are several regional and state basketball tournaments held there.
USA Today named the Corn Palace in its list of Top 10 places in America for high school basketball.
The Corn Palace gets fresh corn decorations (plus other grains and native grasses) with 13 colors or shades of corn – including green corn.
The exterior décor has corn that is carefully nailed in place to create a work of art. Corn murals are removed in last August and new ones are put up in October. During the summer, the Corn Palace is home to “Food Truck Fridays” – including some offerings not usually found in the middle of corn country. Admission to the Corn Palace is free and so is nearby parking. Mitchell has plenty of hotels and a variety of restaurants. The Corn Palace is at 612 N. Main Street and is open from 8 a.m. to 9 p.m., seven days a week through Labor Day. After Labor Day, it is open from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Mitchell has a few tiny casinos but not as many as Oklahoma (more than 140) and they are not as big. During our trip, there didn’t seem to be hardly any cars outside the storefront casinos in Mitchell.
Mitchell is about 300 miles from Mount Rushmore (near Rapid City). It is a long drive but it is via I-90, which has a 80 mph speed limit.
Another attraction in Mitchell is the Mitchell Prehistoric Indian Village. This archaeological site was discovered in 1910 by a student from Dakota Wesleyan University.
The site was a center for processing bison, where Indians extracted bone grease to make pemmican. Those Indians also grew corn, beans, squash, sunflowers, tobacco and amaranth. The people lived in earthen lodges on a bluff overlooking a large creek. In 1928, the creek was dammed to create Lake Mitchell.
The village has storytellers, skytellers, Native American games, lectures and artists during the summer season.
Admission is $6 for adults, $5 for seniors and children and students pay $4.
Northern travel
There are several routes to South Dakota from Tulsa. One is up the Will Rogers Turnpike and on through Kansas City, Missouri. Then you head north to Omaha, Nebraska; Sioux City, Iowa; and eventually to Sioux Falls, South Dakota – the largest city in the state.
Mitchell is 70 miles west of Sioux Falls on I-90.
We chose the rural route. We took the Cimarron Turnpike to I-35 and headed north to Wichita, Kansas. Then we took I-35 to Salina, where it ends and becomes Highway 81. Those roads are four-laned through the State of Kansas.
Johnny Carson’s home
In Nebraska, we stayed on Highway 81 the whole way through the state. It was partially four-laned and partially two-laned. The traffic was so light (this was on the July 4th weekend) that we made great time.
One of the interesting spots in Nebraska was in Norfolk, where the boyhood home of the late talk-show host Johnny Carson is located right on Highway 81. It has been completely restored.
After hearing Johnny Carson talk about his Midwestern roots, it was interesting to see where he actually grew up.
Highway 81 connects to I-90 in South Dakota and Mitchell is about 35 miles west of the connection.
It might seem boring to drive through about 500 miles of Midwestern corn and soybean fields but it is educational.
Giant wind farms
In Oklahoma, you drive right through Chisholm View Wind Project, a wind farm with 140 gigantic turbines. This is north and east of Enid near Hunter, Oklahoma, in Garfield and Grant counties.
This project encompasses about 45,000 acres and 150 landowners. It opened in 2012 and the energy is sold to Alabama Power Company, a subsidiary of Atlanta-based Southern Company.
According to tradewindenergy.com, the wind farm produces 235 megawatts of electricity.
In Kansas, you drive through Slate Creek Wind Farm in Gueda Springs, Kansas (Sumner County). About 50 miles south of Wichita, it has 75 wind turbines and generates 150 megawatts of power on about 17,000 acres. It opened in 2015. That wind farm is supposed to generate enough energy to power 55,000 average homes in Kansas and Missouri, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.
I have driven through the Arbuckle Mountain Wind Farm on I-35 between Pauls Valley and Ardmore in Davis in southern Oklahoma and it is an amazing scene, too.
These turbines are enormous. The cost for each one ranges from $1.3 million to $4 million. Industrial wind turbines (1.5-megawatt models) use 116-foot blades on a 212-foot town for a total height of 328 feet.
That’s big.
I can see why they put these wind farms in Northern Oklahoma and Southern Kansas because the landscape is flat as a pancake. And it is windy, although on our return trip, we saw several turbines that were not moving and some moved very slowly.
Wind power has a lot of advantages but if there is no wind, there is no power. Similarly, solar power is clean, renewal energy but if the sun’s not out, you get no electricity.
Pike Pass in Kansas
Also, if you have an Oklahoma Pikepass that will automatically pay the tolls in Kansas, according to the Kansas Turnpike Authority.
And if you don’t use ethanol but prefer 100 percent gasoline for your vehicle, there are plenty of places to but gas. Some states, like Florida, mandate ethanol and 100 percent gas isn’t available.
Finally, if you want to visit Mitchell, South Dakota, summer is the best time. The winters there are brutal. And driving is the best bet because the only nearby commercial airport is in Sioux Falls in the southeast corner of the state. And less than a half dozen airlines fly out of Sioux Falls.