America’s only corn-covered building is in South Dakota and you can walk right in for free

It’s free, it’s bizarre and it’s worth the detour

Mitchell, South Dakota, sits along Interstate 90 with about 16,000 people and one building that stops traffic every single day.

The Corn Palace covers its entire exterior in murals made from real corn, and it’s been doing this since 1892. No other building like it survived anywhere in the country.

You can walk in for free, any day of the year, no ticket required.

Around 500,000 people make the stop annually, and most of them weren’t sure what to expect until they pulled into the parking lot.

Mitchell built this to prove its farmland was worth settling

Back in 1892, Mitchell had about 3,000 residents and a lot to prove.

Towns across the Great Plains were competing for settlers, and Mitchell’s answer was to build a palace covered in crops.

They called it The Corn Belt Exposition, and the whole point was to show that South Dakota’s soil was rich enough to grow something worth celebrating.

Between 1887 and 1930, at least 34 crop palaces went up across the Midwest, in towns like Sioux City, Iowa, and Plankinton, South Dakota. Every single one of them is gone now except this one.

Three buildings carried the same corn-covered tradition forward

The original 1892 palace was a wooden castle built on donated land right on Main Street.

It came down in 1905 and was rebuilt larger, partly because Mitchell was trying to take the state capital title away from Pierre. That bid failed, but the palace stayed.

The current structure went up in 1921, designed by Chicago architects Rapp and Rapp. Then in 1937, the building got the look it still carries today: onion domes and Moorish minarets added to the roofline.

Those domes were renovated in 2015 after high winds started shaking the old ones loose.

Every ear of corn gets split in half and nailed to the wall

Seven murals go up on the exterior every year, and every bit of color comes from corn that grew that way naturally. Workers use 12 naturally occurring corn colors, none of it painted.

The process starts in late May, when rye, milo, sour dock, and native grasses get harvested and bundled for the border work.

Once corn comes in during August, each ear is split lengthwise so the flat side can be nailed directly to the building.

Artists project designs onto black tar paper marked with color codes, essentially a corn-by-numbers system. A crew of about 20 workers nails more than 275,000 ears into place.

The theme changes every year and the murals never come down early

Each year, the murals follow a new theme. In 2025, it was “Wonders of the World.”

In 2026, “250 Years of America.” Past themes have covered everything from “Space Age” to “Salute to Military” to “Scenes of the Old West.”

The old murals stay up until the new ones are ready to replace them, so the building is never bare.

If you want to see the colors at their sharpest, plan your visit for fall, after the new murals go up in September or October. By the following summer, months of weather have taken the edge off the colors.

Oscar Howe turned the murals into something the art world noticed

From 1948 to 1971, a Yanktonai Dakota artist named Oscar Howe designed every mural on the Corn Palace.

Howe was born in 1915 on the Crow Creek Reservation in South Dakota and went on to become one of the most recognized Native American artists of the 20th century, known for bold colors and figures in motion.

South Dakota named him Artist Laureate in 1960.

Inside the Corn Palace today, a permanent gallery displays more than 50 of his original sketches and paintings, the actual guides used to build the murals ear by ear.

Students at a local university now design the murals each year

After Howe, artist Calvin Schultz carried the mural designs from 1977 to 2002. Cherie Ramsdell followed from 2003 to 2017.

Since 2018, the designs have come from students in the Digital Media and Design program at Dakota Wesleyan University, which sits right in Mitchell.

The corn itself comes from a local farmer who grows it specifically for the palace each year.

The whole operation, from design to harvest to installation, stays rooted in the same community that started this tradition over 130 years ago.

The building works as a real arena and community hall year-round

This is not a museum that only exists for tourists.

The Corn Palace doubles as a working arena where the Mitchell High School Kernels and the Dakota Wesleyan University Tigers play their home basketball games.

The same building hosts concerts, banquets, proms, and graduations.

Over the decades, the stage inside has seen performers ranging from Andy Griffith to The Three Stooges. On any given week, the people filling those seats are mostly locals, not visitors from the interstate.

Late August brings a festival and the rodeo pulls crowds in July

Every year in late August, Mitchell throws the Corn Palace Festival to mark the start of the annual redecoration.

Carnival rides, food vendors, live entertainment, and produce competitions fill the stretch around the palace. The festival used to run in September at harvest time but shifted to late August in recent years.

For a different kind of event, the Corn Palace Stampede Rodeo draws its own crowds each July. September brings yet another reason to visit, with a Polka Festival held at the palace.

Step inside and you’ll find murals, history and corn cob jelly

The interior walls carry their own set of corn murals, and because they’re protected from the weather, they hold their color far longer than the ones outside.

Displays walk you through the history of the building and the mural-making process in enough detail that you leave understanding how it actually works.

The Oscar Howe gallery inside shows his original sketches, paintings, and handwritten notes. Free guided tours run during summer months, led by local guides.

Before you go, the gift shop sells corn-themed souvenirs, including, yes, corn cob jelly.

Mitchell has more worth seeing once you’ve done the palace

A few blocks away, the Mitchell Prehistoric Indian Village is the only active public archaeological site in South Dakota, showing how people lived in the area more than 1,000 years ago.

The Dakota Discovery Museum covers Great Plains history through Native American artifacts and pioneer exhibits. The Carnegie Resource Center holds local history records and original Oscar Howe artworks.

And across the street from the palace, you can get a photo with Cornelius, a six-foot fiberglass ear of corn standing guard over Main Street.

The drought year of 2006 shows how tied this tradition is to the land

The Corn Palace has run for more than 130 years as a celebration of agriculture, folk art, and the community that keeps it going.

The city of Mitchell funds and maintains the whole operation, supported by gift shop revenue, event fees, and donations. In 2006, extreme drought hit so hard that no new murals were created at all.

The building stayed bare that year because the corn simply wasn’t there. That’s the thing about a palace built from crops: the weather has always had the final say.

Visit the Corn Palace in Mitchell, South Dakota

You can find the Corn Palace at 604 North Main Street in Mitchell, right off Interstate 90. Admission is free and so is parking, year-round.

Regular hours run Monday through Saturday, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Starting in May, summer hours extend to 8 a.m. to 9 p.m. daily. The closest major airport is Sioux Falls Regional, about 75 miles east.

If you can time your visit for October or November, the murals will be at their freshest and most colorful after the fall installation.

This article was created with AI assistance and human editing.

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