Scenes from South Central South Dakota

Jury duty obligations successfully completed, we headed west from our home city of Sioux Falls out to the state capitol in Pierre (which we learned is not pronounced “pea-air” (with a French accent), but “pier”). Along the way, we took in a few sites.

The World’s Only Corn Palace

Doug is all “hurry up and take the picture, I wanna go in the Corn Palace!!”

When mentioning South Dakota, many people respond “are you going to the Corn Palace?” It’s a “thing.”

In the late 1800s, at least 34 Great Plains cities constructed “palaces” decorated with “crop art”, including grains, corn, and bluegrass. This Moorish Revival building in Mitchell is the only one remaining. It was built in 1921 (with the Moorish minarets added in 1937).

Each year a new design is constructed, with this year’s theme being “Famous South Dakotans.” It costs about $175,000 to redecorate what our friend Mary called “the world’s largest bird feeder.” Locally grown corn in twelve shades is used to create the murals, using about 325,000 ears of corn (split in half and nailed to the exterior with approximately 1.5 million nails!).

Did you know that Bob Barker of *The Price is Right* fame grew up on the Rosebud Indian Reservation in Mission, South Dakota? This is an exterior panel; you can see that surrounding this work is still plywood yet to be covered. Just the front and one side of the building exterior are covered with murals.

Inside the Corn Palace was this auditorium/gymnasium/theater/gift shop. A film about the Corn Palace played on the screen hanging in the center, over the many corn-themed items for sale. The panels running just under the ceiling are of course all corn works of art!

Of course Laura Ingalls is featured, given her connection with De Smet, South Dakota (which we visited and wrote about here).

South Dakota Tractor Museum

Never have I hoped to find myself in a tractor museum, yet there I was in Kimball, wondering how this had happened to me. There were multiple buildings housing lovingly- and painstakingly-restored tractors and other farm equipment, as well as a display of household items related to life on the prairie in the early 1900s. There was also a one-room schoolhouse and blacksmith shop. Needless to say, I simply followed Doug around, wondering if he could truly be interested in this. (Okay, Doug says that he wanted to go to the museum in memory of his paternal grandfather who was a lifelong farmer and who would have liked the displays.)

He’s just pretending to be interested, right?

The Dignity of Earth and Sky Statue

We stopped at a rest area in Chamberlain to see this massive sculpture standing above the Missouri River.

The sculpture was created by Dale Lamphere and erected in 2016 to honor the Native Nations of the Great Plains. She stands 50 feet tall and weighs 12 tons.

The star quilt is made of 128 diamonds in the colors of the water and sky.

The vast view over the Missouri River from the Dignity statue.

Oahe Downstream Recreation Area

A common female blackbird with some loot!

We spent a few hours trying to capture some magic at Oahe Downstream Recreation Area, which was recommended as a birding hot spot by Audubon, but we didn’t find anything terribly exciting. It was still nice to be out and about, though, and we also saw a double rainbow (the cover photo to this post), so that was nice!