Alexander showed us around Mitchell today and gave us a tour of the Corn Palace, "The World's Largest Bird Feeder." It was a-maize-ing! It was incredible ear-catecture! We even learned about Stickly and what it is like to go to school in a town of 400 people.
Mitchell is home of the Corn Palace. The Corn Palace is decorated with several colors of dried corn and grains creating murals. The theme of the external murals is changed yearly at fall harvest; internal murals are changed approximately every ten years. The building itself is used for several purposes including a basketball arena, the local high school prom, trade shows, staged entertainment, and the Shriner's Circus.
Mitchell is the home to the Dakota Discovery Museum, whose mission is the history of the prairie and the people who settled it. Covering a time period from 1600 when the Native Americans were undiscovered to 1939 at the end of the Great Depression. The museum is a caliber not often found in small mid-western towns, and holds one of the most complete and pristine collections of American Indian quill and bead-works. Dakota Discovery Museum also features famous artists such as Harvey Dunn, James Earle Fraser, Charles Hargens and Oscar Howe. In the village area behind the main building are four authentic historical buildings including an 1885 one-room school house and the fully furnished 1886 Victorian-Italianate home of the co-founder of the Corn Palace, Louis Beckwith. Two new features of the museum are Discovery Land, a hands-on activity area for children ages 5 to 10, and the Heritage Gardens Project bringing indigenous plants to the gardens surrounding the museum and historical buildings.
Mitchell is home to the Mitchell Prehistoric Indian Village, an archaeological site where scientists are excavating a Native American village, believed to have been occupied by ancestors of the present Mandan residing in North Dakota, that is buried near Lake Mitchell. The excavation site is unique in that it is enclosed by an Archeodome, a climate-controlled building built over the excavation, that allows scientists to continue their excavation year round.
