So sang Mary Martin in South Pacific on Broadway, and Mitzi Gaynor in the movies. That’s all well and good, but Kansas is more of a wheat state. The corn in the photograph is not from Kansas. It’s Iowa corn, courtesy of our blogger friend Jeannelle of Iowa, not to be confused with Eleanor of Aquitaine, mother of Richard the Lion-Hearted.Corn is not just a food. It also makes great building material. Here’s the Corn Palace in Mitchell, South Dakota, in the year 1907.
The building itself has changed over the years, but it is still going strong. According to the Wikipedia article on Mitchell, the building is used for several purposes, including a basketball arena, the local high school prom, trade shows, staged entertainment, and the Shriners’ Circus.Nebraska may be called the Cornhusker State, South Dakota may be the home of the Corn Palace (God help us all), and lots of states grow corn (Illinois? Ohio? Minnesota?), but I still think of Iowa when I think of corn. Maybe it’s because my Dad grew up in Iowa, or maybe it’s because of this scene in Kevin Costner’s 1989 film, Field of Dreams:
What’s that you say? You rarely, if ever, think of corn? You must be kidding!
