Then shame on all the proud and vain,
Whose folly laughs to scorn
The blessing of our hardy grain,
Our wealth of golden corn!
Let earth withhold her goodly root,
Let mildew blight the rye,
Give to the worm the orchard’s fruit,
The wheat-field to the fly:
But let the good old crop adorn
The hills our fathers trod;
Still let us, for His golden corn,
Send up our thanks to God!
—from “The Corn Song,”
by John Greenleaf Whittier
Most things central to people’s lives, from family birthdays to the Fourth of July, are happily celebrated. Corn is no exception. Corn festivals, corn mazes, and corn-eating contests dot the American landscape, but, not too surprisingly, they are most abundant in the Midwest. From corn palaces to sweet corn and popcorn festivals to giant corn monuments, people have, throughout the region’s history, found ways to show their enthusiasm and gratitude for corn. However, ceremonies and festivities related to corn stretch back a long way.
Almost as ancient as growing and eating corn is the celebration of corn. Native Americans of both North and South America had elaborate rituals to ensure a good crop and show their gratitude when harvest time rolled around. The more dependent on corn people became, the more elaborate the rituals for planting, and the more enthusiastic the celebrations of the harvest. From Mexico down through South America, kings or priests generally planted the first corn. Throughout the Americas, those with political, religious, or ritual authority were always involved. Among the Inca, Maya, and Aztecs, human sacrifice was considered a necessity. (The Aztecs referred to cutting the heart out of a living victim as “husking,” as the ears of corn would later be husked, and viewed it as being indispensible to ensuring a good harvest.)1
While sacrifice was commonly viewed as a key element of early celebrations, it didn’t always have to be human sacrifice. In his classic work on North American Indians, George Catlin describes the traditional ritual among the Hidatsa, who lived in the area now known as North Dakota, when the corn was green and sweet:
On the day appointed by the doctors, the villagers are all assembled, and in the midst of the group a kettle is hung over a fire and filled with the green corn, which is well boiled, to be given to the Great Spirit, as a sacrifice necessary to be made before any one can indulge the cravings of his appetite. Whilst the first kettleful is boiling, four medicine-men, with a stalk of corn in one hand and a rattle (she-she-quoi) in the other, with their bodies painted with white clay, dance around the kettle, chanting a song of thanksgiving to the Great Spirit to whom the offering is to be made. At the same time a number of warriors are dancing around in a more extended circle, with stalks of corn in their hands, and joining also in the song of thanksgiving, whilst the villagers are all assembled and looking on. . . .
In this wise the dance continues until the doctors decide that the corn is sufficiently boiled; it then stops for a few moments, and again assumes a different form and a different song, whilst the doctors are placing the ears [of corn] on a little scaffold of sticks, which they erect immediately over the fire where it is entirely consumed, as they join again in the dance around it.
Finally, Catlin reports, after the ashes from the corn sacrifice are buried, the tribe has “unlimited licence” to indulge in as much green corn as they can manage to consume. Catlin then adds that this is fairly representative of celebrations among most of the tribes he encountered, though each group, of course, added their own special “forms and ceremonies.”2
In a way, festivities that gave rise to one of our oldest national holidays were in celebration of corn. Most Americans know the story about Squanto teaching the Pilgrims how to plant corn3 and how that corn saved the survivors of that first, devastating winter at Plymouth. Before the arrival of the Pilgrims, Squanto had been living with the Wampanoag. The Wampanoag, like other Native Americans, regularly celebrated the harvest, and so they were hardly surprised when the Pilgrims showed an interest in doing the same. Of course, the English had as long a history of celebrating harvests as Native Americans did and would happily celebrate the new crop they were harvesting.4 There was little of what would now be considered typical for Thanksgiving at that 1621 harvest celebration, but it is known that there was venison (the Wampanoag contribution), fowl (colonist Edward Winslow reported that, in one day, they “killed as much fowl as, with a little help beside, served the company for almost a week”), and, of course, corn. (Given the seaside location, it’s likely they also had clams and oysters, too, but those were not included in Winslow’s account, which is the only extant eyewitness report of the celebration.) The party, attended by roughly fifty Pilgrims and ninety Wampanoag, lasted for three days, with feasting and entertainment.5 Both groups found their need to show gratitude for corn satisfied.
Harvest festivals continued to be held—and for most of the history of the Thirteen Colonies, harvest festival meant corn festival. After independence, as pioneers and then settlers flooded across the lands that would become known as the Midwest, the importance of corn grew. With the prairies and the Great Plains settled and producing almost unimaginable amounts of the golden grain, an explosion of celebrations was about to occur—an explosion inextricably interwoven with the rise of tourism.
The building of railways across the United States was a boon to business, but corn and equipment were not the only things riding the rails. Americans were soon on the move in greater numbers than ever before. The ability to get around more easily gave birth to the desire in many to travel just for the sake of traveling and seeing new things. This, in turn, encouraged some folks to get seriously competitive. Towns and cities would try to create events and sights that would attract visitors. Corn festivals began to spring up, along with corn queens and corn competitions. County fairs, state fairs, corn palaces, corn trains, World’s Fairs, and more would become part of celebrating corn.
County fairs and state fairs began to appear in the mid-1800s, though planned primarily for business rather than for fun. As Abraham Lincoln stated during a speech given in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, on September 30, 1859,
Agricultural fairs are becoming an institution of the country; they are useful in more ways than one; they bring us together, and thereby make us better acquainted, and better friends than we otherwise would be. . . . But the chief use of Agricultural Fairs is to aid in improving the great calling of Agriculture, in all its departments, and minute divisions; to make mutual exchange of agricultural discovery, information, and knowledge; so that, at the end, all may know everything, which may have been known to but one, or to but few, at the beginning; to bring together, especially, all which is supposed to be not generally known, because of recent discovery or invention.6
As Lincoln noted, fairs afforded an ideal venue for the dissemination of information. New methods of breeding, feeding, protecting, and harvesting crops were being developed at a stunning rate, and a better husking glove or shelling machine or method of controlling weeds could make all the difference in a farmer’s level of success. Everyone who could went to these fairs. In addition to demonstrations and lectures, however, there were also competitions. The largest hogs, tallest horses, and strongest oxen might all bring home ribbons, as well as trigger efforts to improve stock on other farms. Corn competitions featured the tallest stalks, largest ears, and greatest uniformity.
Iowa in particular became famous for tall corn, with Washington, Iowa, claiming the title of “Tall Corn Capital of the World.” While much impressive corn was raised in the area, a 2009 news story related that “No one grew taller corn in the 1930s-1950s than Don Radda of rural Washington. The tallest stalk he ever grew was 31 feet, 7/8 inch, and he still holds the world record today.”7 A metal replica of that monster cornstalk, which was grown in 1946, was installed in 2009 on the site of the Washington, Iowa, County Fairground.8
While this is just one anecdote among thousands, it underscores the importance of the fairs and the competitions to residents of the Midwest. It also shows how seriously those competitions were taken. It had a profound impact on agriculture. A blue ribbon at the fair encouraged better farming practices not only for the pride of accomplishment, but also for increased sales. The tallest corn might be a novelty, but growing the biggest, sweetest, or heaviest ears of corn was vital. People would want to know a farmer’s secrets but would also line up to buy his seed corn.
Since the 1920s, this competitive aspect of the fairs has become less vital, as far as the size of ears of corn is concerned, because hybridizing has created a world in which nearly all ears are large and, in order to work with the machines, uniform. That said, while field corn may not be a major contender in competition, sweet corn, popcorn, and specialty corns can still compete, because these have not become standardized. And, of course, a blue ribbon is never a bad thing when marketing one’s products.
State and county fairs drew people from a fairly wide region but were still relatively localized and appealed mostly to people involved in agriculture. So the Midwest decided it needed a bigger draw—something city folk would come to see.
While Mitchell, South Dakota, is home to the attraction that most readily comes to mind when people hear the words “Corn Palace,” it was not the only and not even the first palace built to showcase the reigning monarch of the prairies. A number of palaces burst on the scene in the late 1800s. Sioux City, Iowa; Bloomington, Illinois; Gregory, South Dakota; and Peoria, Illinois, all had corn palaces, and Plankinton, South Dakota, had its Grain Palace.
These palaces were more than just bits of competitive showmanship. They were closely related to the boosterism that had led to Chicago’s rapid growth. Just as farms needed cities and towns if they were to prosper, so too cities and towns needed farms if they were to grow. The more a town could show off how productive the surrounding farms were, the more likely it was that people would move to that town. Farmers and urban planners were united in the efforts because all would benefit. In a way, it was a manifestation of the degree to which the region was beginning to identify itself as a cohesive whole. Loyalty to one’s town could be intense, but second to that was loyalty to the region. People could easily cooperate across state borders, as long as it stayed within the Corn Belt. In fact, the initial title of the Mitchell Corn Palace was the Corn Belt Exposition.9
Though it was South Dakota’s Mitchell Corn Palace that would survive, it was Sioux City, Iowa, that laid claim to originating the concept, with their first Corn Palace predating Mitchell’s by five years.10 For that first palace, fifteen thousand bushels of yellow corn and five thousand bushels of variegated corn were used to decorate both the exterior and interior of the structure.11 It is hard to imagine now, perhaps, how important these corn celebrations were, or what a great draw they could be, but Sioux City’s corn palace was big news even in Chicago. “Today was the first day of the corn-palace jubilee, the formal opening having taken place last night,” trumpeted the Chicago Daily Tribune on October 5, 1887. “Fifteen thousand strangers are in town. The streets are packed to witness the pioneer parade.”12 The following year, the same Chicago paper enthused, “Built almost entirely of grain, the corn palace is a remarkable and unique specimen of architecture and well worth a visit.” The paper also underscored the train–tourism connection, reporting, “The Chicago & Northwestern Railway will at intervals sell tickets to Sioux City and return at the low rate of one fare for the round trip.”13 The next year, the paper reported that there were “two trains daily” to the festivities in Iowa.14 These palaces and the festivities attendant upon their openings, aside from displaying the products for which the region was now famous, were a major enticement to wandering. The railway companies were eager to encourage more travel, offering special deals and evolving and improving services on board. Steadily increasing numbers of people began pursuing the wonders of other states. Of their corn palace, the Sioux City Journal wrote in 1888 that “half of Iowa, a quarter of Nebraska, and all of South Dakota seem to have gathered here.”15
To keep attention on itself and grow its already large audience, Sioux City devised a Corn Palace Train, decorated much like the palace, which toured the Eastern Seaboard in 1889. The New York Times reported, “Everything used in the decorations except the iron nails is the product of Iowa cornfields and the whole train is a marvel of beauty.” The train had the desired effect, generating even more traffic for the already successful Corn Palace.16 Sadly, the Sioux City Corn Palace would last only a few more years. Its size and popularity continued to increase steadily, but in May 1892, the Great Floyd River Flood sent a six-foot wall of water through the city that left so many homes and businesses severely damaged or destroyed that there was no question of diverting money into a corn palace. (It was the news that Sioux City’s Corn Palace would not open in 1892 that established the timing of Mitchell’s efforts in South Dakota.)17
Not everyone responded to Sioux City’s success with a palace, but success did breed competition. The Atchison, Kansas, Corn Carnival triggered the creation of competing events in other Kansas towns. Bloomington, Illinois, would devise a corn palace after the turn of the century, but Plankinton, South Dakota, created its first grain palace in 1891, as Sioux City was building their grandest palace to date. While regional pride was surging, loyalty to one’s town (including the surrounding farm community) still trumped state loyalty, and a year after Plankinton launched their grain palace, town boosters in nearby Mitchell decided they could do a better job. (And yes, there were hard feelings. The people of Plankinton were encouraged to boycott merchants in Mitchell.)18 In 1892, Mitchell introduced its Corn Belt Exposition to the world. The success of Mitchell in creating their palace was a little surprising, because the young town only had a population of three thousand. However, planners did not lack ambition. They hired Alexander Rohe, the Kansas designer who had created the Sioux City Corn Palace, and constructed a palace with a seating capacity of 2,600.19
The first Mitchell Corn Palace lasted through 1904 (redecorated annually, but the underlying structure lasted that long). The next palace stood from 1905 until 1920, but then it needed to be replaced, as well. The current Corn Palace was erected in 1921, with a seating capacity of 5,000. The Corn Palace doesn’t just feature corn: it is a popular venue that has hosted conventions, sporting events, and top musicians and entertainers, with the offerings changing as the eras rolled by. The building was remodeled in 1937, with the now familiar onion domes and minarets being added.20 Every year, new murals are created, made primarily of corn, with a few prairie grasses added when necessary. Farmers in the region volunteer to grow patches of the corn varieties needed to supply all the different colors of corn—and because corn naturally comes in such a wide range of colors, they have quite a palate to choose from (at present, thirteen colors).21
FIGURE 17. The Mitchell Corn Palace draws about half a million visitors annually. The elaborate decorations are created new each year. This is the Corn Palace in 2012. Photo courtesy of the Mitchell Corn Palace.
A corn palace epitomized the rural–urban connection, because the cities could not have built their palaces at all without farmers from a wide area supplying the grain needed to decorate the structures. However, the early corn palaces demonstrated more than this. They showed the world that the Midwest had arrived. New cities could create big attractions, and corn could be a big draw. Maybe it was time for the world to check out the Midwest.
The first World’s Fair was in London, England, in 1851, largely the work of Queen Victoria’s consort, Prince Albert. The first in the United States was in Philadelphia in 1876—celebrating the centennial of the country’s independence. New Orleans had the next U.S.-based fair in 1884. However, the Midwest was becoming too important to the country to have all the fairs in old cities. The 1893 Columbian Exposition in Chicago was the third world’s fair to be held in the United States—but it was definitely not the last to be held in the Midwest. Omaha, Nebraska, hosted the 1898 fair, and St. Louis, Missouri, had the honor in 1904.22 This was significant because it acknowledged the “arrival” of an area that had until recently been considered (and, in some cases, was in reality) untamed wilderness. In 1893, Chicago was only sixty years distant from being an Indian trading post—and only twenty-two years removed from the Great Chicago Fire—yet it hosted a fair that was to become legendary.23
Thirty-six nations participated in the Columbian Exposition, but this was a chance for the United States, and especially the Midwest, to shine. Forty-six American states and territories exhibited at the fair,24 displaying the technological achievements and phenomenal agricultural accomplishments of the country, and establishing that U.S. pride was not out of place among the nations. Unlike previous fairs, Chicago’s fair was not housed in one building, but offered fairgoers an entire city of splendid buildings and impressive exhibits.25 To display the wealth and success of the Midwest, grain was everywhere. All exhibits from midwestern states included corn in some way, including a huge mosaic created entirely of grains and grasses, especially ears of corn, husks, and corn kernels, in the Illinois Building. In addition, there was a massive Agriculture Building. In the model kitchen in the Women’s Building, volunteers demonstrated the myriad things one could do with corn. (One can still find online the little book of Recipes Used in the Illinois Corn Exhibit model kitchen, Women’s Building, Columbian Exposition, Chicago, 1893.) At this fair, people could buy popcorn balls and enjoy the first hot buttered popcorn from C. C. Cretors’s new popping machine.
The states of the Midwest did not merely exhibit—their residents came in force. From Chicagoans to farmers and people from small towns, midwesterners poured into the fairgrounds. Those from rural areas might have been overwhelmed by the size and scope of the event, but it gave them a chance to compare the buildings that represented their states with those of other states.26 It was fitting that they should come, too—because it was they, and possibly their parents, who had spread across the plains, built the railroads, planted the fields, and created much of what was being celebrated at the fair.
The Trans-Mississippi and International Exposition held in Omaha in 1898, though less well known today than Chicago’s Columbian Exposition, was nonetheless a success, drawing 2.6 million people to Nebraska to view the exposition’s 4,062 exhibits.27 The impressive Beaux-Arts Agriculture building, which bordered the fair’s central lagoon, was decorated in agricultural images, including corn, and filled with exhibits decorated in grain.28
As with the other Midwest fairs, agriculture was front and center in St. Louis. In fact, the spectacular Agriculture Palace, the largest building at the fair, covered more than eighteen acres.29 Agricultural products, including corn, were displayed along a central aisle that was flanked by state exhibits. As the host state, Missouri had the largest and most impressive “show” in the Agricultural Palace, including two beautiful, massive fifteen-by-thirty-five-foot murals made of corn, one depicting a sprawling Missouri corn farm, the other showing a Missouri model farm.30
The fair in Chicago had celebrated the 400-year anniversary of Columbus’s arrival in the New World. Omaha’s fair had focused on westward expansion. The fair in St. Louis commemorated the centennial of the Louisiana Purchase. All three celebrated agriculture, but they also showcased the technology, business, and culture of the growing Midwest. These three World’s Fairs had established that the once wild Midwest was now not only civilized, but also an important part of the world economy. They also left no doubt in the minds of fairgoers that corn was the foundation of what had been built in the Heartland.
State fairs, county fairs, and the festivities surrounding the opening each year of Mitchell’s Corn Palace are far from the only places or ways in which corn is celebrated today. Every state in the Midwest has at least one corn festival, and some states have a dozen or more, for sweet corn or popcorn or both. However, the festivals have a different focus than the fairs have traditionally had. Of course, one obvious difference is that fairs don’t focus primarily on corn. Corn is a big feature of state and county fairs in the Midwest, but so are livestock, farming equipment, and other crops. Corn festivals, however, are about corn, and they are designed for fun. Corn royalty is selected to reign over these events, which offer competitions (often including corn eating), dances, entertainment, and literally tons of corn. Because these festivals often draw tens of thousands of visitors to a town, the preparations can be extensive—and a wonderful way to pull the community together. For example, one day prior to the venerable Sweet Corn Festival in West Point, Iowa, there is a Shuck Fest, where the community turns out to shuck the nearly 20 tons (or more than 45,000 ears) of sweet corn that will be cooked and consumed during the four-day festival. (Also underscoring the regional nature of these festivals, West Point brings in much of this corn from Wisconsin and Illinois.)31
Why do hundreds of thousands of people attend the numerous corn festivals across the Midwest? Terese Allen, food columnist and author of many books on the foods of Wisconsin (a state with multiple corn festivals), shares her thoughts on the persistent popularity of these events.
Corn festivals exist and are important for so many reasons: First, they mark the season, namely summer, which is famously short in the upper Midwest. We have, by necessity, a “get it while you can” attitude about summer fare, one that is especially ingrained around sweet corn because, not only is the season short, but corn is at its delicious best for such a short time after being harvested. Like summer, sweet corn is fleeting, precious, and worth celebrating. Both summer and corn taste so sweet. On top of all that, sweet corn is an ideal food for partying, for celebrating in a casual manner. Corn is fun food.
Corn celebrations are also important because corn is an icon of Midwestern heritage. Corn is the “sea” we are surrounded by, visually, culturally, economically, literally. It permeates our consciousness. Its historical significance is unmatched. Thus, corn festivals are an acknowledgement, a commemoration, of who we are and where we came from.
To me, corn festivals express aspects of Midwestern values and “personality.” By featuring fresh, simple, affordable fare in a sociable setting, they reflect such heartland traits as honesty, frugality, and friendliness. Corn fests are low-key, low-priced, and locally focused—and these are qualities or values that Midwesterners appreciate and epitomize. Corn isn’t particularly “sexy” or contemporary; its prestige and worth come in part from its old-fashionedness, its solidness and stamina (sounds like Midwesterners to me). This is also the place to mention the social services aspect of most corn festivals: they typically help raise funds for community non-profit organizations, communicating and realizing yet another Midwestern value.
FIGURE 18. In West Point, Iowa, the annual Shuck Fest brings the community together to shuck the mountains of corn that will be consumed during the town’s four-day Sweet Corn Festival. Photo courtesy of Wendy Vonderhaar, West Point, IA.
Plus, as I noted in my book Wisconsin Food Festivals: Good Food, Good Folks and Good Fun at Community Celebrations, harvest festivals remind farmers and city dwellers of their important relationship to each other, and to the land. Celebrating the harvest is a natural inclination; getting to a harvest event is one of the few ways for urbanites to connect with natural cycles and with the people who grow our food.
Corn festivals celebrate more than just corn. They celebrate life—which, in the Midwest, sometimes seems to be almost the same thing. The festivals have become, if not as important as corn, nearly as iconic. The sense of community created by working together, the fun, the flavor, and the cherishing of traditions give us hope that these festivals will continue for a long time to come.
One corner of the Kewanee Historical Society’s museum, in Kewanee, Illinois, has been designated as the National Cornhuskers Hall of Fame. While husking corn was a necessary part of harvest for most of the crop’s history, this museum commemorates the heyday of the big cornhusking competitions: 1924–1941. The museum’s walls are lined with newspaper and magazine articles, photographs, and the hooks and pegs huskers used to do their jobs.32 In the 1920s–1930s, the top cornhuskers were among the country’s most admired athletes, and competitions were reported in Newsweek and Life magazines, in newsreels, and on the radio. In 1936, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt gave the starting signal for the “World Series of the Corn Belt,” which drew 160,000 spectators. These competitions took place in cornfields, because competitors had to pick the corn, as well as husk it—and points were deducted for every ear of corn left behind.33 Husked corn was tossed into a wagon, bouncing off a “bangboard,” rather like the backboard in basketball. Setting a record was big news. The front page of the November 10, 1935, edition of the Milwaukee Journal trumpeted the success of Elmer Carlson of Iowa, who had just won the national championship in Attica, Indiana, with a world-record 2,734.3 pounds of husked corn (after penalties for missed corn were deducted). As the paper reported, “If you think Carlson’s victory isn’t something for the books, figure out that he was hitting the bangboard steady for an hour and 20 minutes at a rate of just a trifle over a second and a half per ear.”34
The era when people’s daily jobs trained them for important cornhusker competitions ended in 1941, with the beginning of World War II. By the time troops returned from the war, machines had begun to take over the work. However, the romance of this very American activity lives on, and the National Cornhusking Association still holds an annual contest the third weekend in October, each year in a different midwestern state. Today’s competitions remain popular and now include events for youngsters, women, and seniors.35
Of course, there is a degree to which all celebrations of corn celebrate the work. It is because of the planting, caring, and harvesting that the corn is available. Blue ribbons at fairs for best and biggest honor different aspects of the work. However, only the husking became, for a while, a spectator sport worthy of national coverage.
Fairs, festivals, and palaces are the major ways corn is celebrated, but there are other ways the golden grain is honored. Corn, which appears on the Wisconsin quarter, is the official state grain. In Illinois, popcorn is the official state snack food. The corn motif is scattered through Nebraska’s state capitol, in bronze, marble, and limestone. Towns lay claim to the titles of sweet corn capital, popcorn capital, canned corn capital, or, as in the case of Olivia, Minnesota, “Corn Capital of the World.”
Museums across the Midwest often feature exhibits on corn history and corn culture. Living history venues and outdoor museums bring corn history to life. Pioneer Village in Minden, Nebraska, displays a variety of pegs, gloves, and claws used for husking corn, devices for shelling corn, and a range of other corn- and farming-related relics ranging from early plows to early popcorn machines, as well as representative buildings from the settling of the Great Plains. At the Living History Farms in Des Moines, Iowa, visitors can see corn growing in a Native American settlement, on a farm from the 1850s, and on a 1900 farm. Kline Creek Farm in West Chicago, Illinois, invites the public to come out and participate in a traditional corn harvest each fall, hand-picking corn and tossing it into the horse-drawn wagon, followed by a lesson in making cornhusk dolls. At Greenfield Village, in Dearborn, Michigan, visitors are surrounded by nineteenth-century farm technology and reenactors tending corn. And there are museums to the peripherals of corn culture, such as the Corn Cob Pipe Museum in Washington, Missouri. These are just a few examples of opportunities available for celebrating the history of corn.
Finally, there is the monumental art, sometimes impressive and sometimes amusing, intended to demonstrate visually the importance of corn in the towns where the monuments have been erected. Near Dublin, Ohio, travelers can visit “Field of Corn,” an art installation that features rows of giant, pale gray, shucked ears of corn, 109 in all, made of concrete, each one standing 6 feet, 3 inches tall. Coon Rapids, Iowa, “In the Heart of Corn Country,” boasts a ten-foot rotating ear of corn. Visitors to Hoopeston, Illinois, “Sweet Corn Capital of the Nation,” can view a sixteen-foot-tall metal and wood cornstalk. There’s a corn water tower in Rochester, Minnesota, on the site of Libby Foods. Other corn statues made from a variety of materials are scattered throughout the Midwest, but the honor of having the biggest ear goes to Olivia, Minnesota. The town’s half-husked fiberglass ear of corn, which was erected in 1973, stands twenty-five feet tall. In 2004, the Minnesota Senate passed Resolution 105, designating the town “Corn Capital of the World.” While that may seem remarkable in a region so dominated by corn, the presence of nine seed-research companies, two leading contract seed-production companies, the world’s largest seed-corn broker, and an agricultural environmental solutions company definitely lend credence to Olivia’s claim. Hence, that huge ear of corn.36
FIGURE 19. This twenty-five-foot-tall ear of corn stands in Olivia, Minnesota, a town that lays claim to the title “Corn Capital of the World.” Photo courtesy of city of Olivia.
So, whether in fairs or festivals, monuments or museums, the Midwest celebrates the importance of corn. Corn is the region’s history and legacy, and it is well worth celebrating. Fortunately, from eating one’s fill of sweet corn at a festival to photographing roadside attractions, celebrating corn is also a lot of fun.
