Outdoor lighting for Corn Palace murals has been key from the start

Marcus Traxler, The Daily Republic, Mitchell, S.D.
·2 min read

May 7—EDITOR'S NOTE — This story is part of a series commemorating the 100th anniversary of the current Corn Palace building, which opened in 1921.

The outdoor lighting at the Corn Palace has never been a bigger part of the building's story than in the past 10 years.

With the $7 million renovation of the building's front entry and domes, new lighting for the building's domes delivered a new view, with LED-powered lights that could change colors for various different events and occasions.

READ: More from the Corn Palace 100 series by Marcus Traxler.

But look at the Corn Palace today and it's not hard to see how the lighting in 2021 is similar to how it was soon after it was opened in 1921. In fact, lights at the current Corn Palace have always been a major part of the story.

In 1922, the 34 large globe lights were placed in a row on pillars at the top of the building, fitting in with the rest of the design. Those were in addition to the hundreds of small electric bulbs that outline the panels and the lines of the building.

The Corn Palace today has small bulb lights that outline the murals and the edges of the building, true to how the building has looked from the start.

In 1923, the focus moved inside the Palace as new lighting effects went up for stage productions, adding spotlights, floodlights and special trough lighting in time for the Corn Palace Festival. (Stories from the time used the term candlepower to describe the illumination effects, which is mostly considered outdated today.)

Outdoor, colored lights went onto the building in 1930, with hundreds of bulbs installed, with a modern, indirect lighting effect onto the corn panels themselves.

More lights arrived in 1937 when the current Corn Palace had its first substantial renovation. It included a new ticket booth, a new drop curtain, stage settings and 1,500 new lights, including four new floodlights for the domes on the Corn Palace roof. The colored lights from 1930 to light up the murals were replaced with "lemon-colored globes," bringing back a yellowish glow. (More about the 1937 upgrades and changes in a future installment of this series.)

This story was published with the research assistance of the Carnegie Resource Center in Mitchell, located at 119 W. Third Ave.