You say Corn Palace you automatically think Mitchell the one and only Corn Palace. But not so fast Plankinton had a grain Palace in 1892 (see last photo) and a few other towns were testing the concept.

And the Gregory Commercial club thought it would be just the ticket for the Bennett, Mellette County Land opening of 1911. What better way to attract the land seekers off the train to view the wonders of what this new Rosebud country could grow. Once the idea was approved, a 75 ft frontage of lots were purchased on the North end of Gregory’s Main Street by the newly build land office. A new 8ft wide concrete sidewalk was to be built 8 blocks from the Depot to the Corn Palace. And you can bet once built this sidewalk would be lined with every type of Huckster, Gambler, token seller known to man. The whole idea was to get the people that came to register for the land to walk through the entire length of main street so all the merchants would have a chance to lighten the land seekers change pouch.

The Corn Palaces construction was pushed with all possible haste to have it ready in time for the influx of settlers with upwards of 2500 people a day for 2 weeks. The inside would be full of displays of many of the grains that could be grown. A Big Commercial club meeting room, and of course room for all the registrar people to work. It was reported there was 2 tons of mail at the land office ready to be opened once the building was done. On the outside Gregory brought in some of Mitchell’s corn palace workers to work their wonders on the building. And its image became one of the most sent postcards during the drawing (that’s why they can still be found on eBay from all parts of the country and most will have written on the back). Once the drawing was done and all the Commotion ceased the building was purchased by the Krotter Lumber Company for storage. The building was looking pretty down on its luck. (see middle photo above) until 1951 when it was demolished for Krotters to build their new building.

Author Richard Papousek, October 2023