Welcome to Mitchell, SD, home of the world-famous, one and only Corn Palace. Why do they have a Corn Palace here, anyway? Because they can. The goal was to put Mitchell on the map, and apparently it worked. 500,000 visitors a year drive out to see this thing in person. And yes - it really is a huge building covered in corn, grasses, and grains. They even dare to refer to it as "A-Maize-Ing!" (groan.)

This is actually the third building to be called the Mitchell "Corn Palace" - the original was first built in 1892 as a 100 x 66 foot wooden building with you-know-what attached. But by 1905 they had outgrown their space, and so 55 days later they'd come up with Corn Palace #2. By 1921 it was time to build a permanent structure, so Corn Palace #3 came along, which you see today.

This is the 2000 display; the pattern changes every year. The beans particularly liked this design, as Elvis is included... A new theme is selected every year by the Corn Palace Committee. When ready to go, 275,000 ears of corn in 9 different natural colors are nailed to the walls by local artists. We're going to recommend that they add a can of black beans to next year's design; what do you think???

Mr. Franke passed along an interesting story from his visit to the Corn Palace. He was setting up the beans for a shot when a passerby noticed what he was doing and yelled, "Hey - Beans Around The World! Way to go!" The passerby stopped and talked with Mr. Franke for a while, and told him that several people had been taking pictures in the area with black beans. Now how cool is that???

This picture is one I took in 1996. If you look at the street, you'll see an Amish gentlemen crossing. I wanted to ask him if he'd hold the can so I could take his picture, but Mary threatened to bury my earthly remains in several different corn fields if I even considered it, so I didn't. Looking back, this was probably the wisest decision, but at the time it sounded like a good idea...

The unofficial state animal in South Dakota is the Jackelope, and in honor of this jackrabbit/antelope hybrid, you'll find this 12 foot tall statue in Mitchell. We of course couldn't pass up an opportunity to have the beans sit on the big horned bunny. We suspect his name might be Harvey, but unfortunately he wasn't speaking to us...

So if you're driving through South Dakota, and all you've seen for hundreds of miles is dust, corn, more dust, an occassional Black Hill, even more dust, and a billion and one Wall Drug signs, consider a stop in Mitchell to hang out with the giant rabbits and the building o' corn. The beans had fun; you might, too... More info on Mitchell and the Corn Palace is available on their Web site.