Democratic Sentinel, Volume 17, Number 21, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 9 June 1893 — THE EIGHTH WONDER. [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

THE EIGHTH WONDER.

SIOUX CITY’S ANNUAL CORN PALACE. Grand Preparations Are Being; Made for the Annual Corn Palace at Sioux City, lowa-Will Open September 20 and Close October 18, 1803. A Ilarvest Celebration. This is the great Columbian Year and it is peculiarly fit that in tho commemoration of Columbus’ groat discovery we pausi to pay due tribute to the great food product of the New World—the golden maize—of which there was never a kernel in. the world until carried from these shores. In ages past it was th j food of the wandering tribes of the North as well as of the Aztecs and Incas of the South and the object of their thanksgivings and fes-

tivities. Witli us, as with these primitive people, #t is the most important grain product, nearly equalling in value that of all the other cereals. It is the foundation of the marvelous prosperity ana growth of the West. Then it is so graceful and lends itself so effectively to decorative purposes. Its leaves, its tassels, its ears, with their varied tints, mako it unrivalled for artistic use. And above all it is always and only American. “Therose may bloom for England, The lily for France unfold; Ireland may honor the shamrock, Scotland her thlsle bold; Ent the shie d of the Great Republic, The glory of the West, Shall Lear a stalk of the tasselled corn, ur all our wea.th the best. # * if if * * But the v.-ide Republic’s emblem Is the bounteous golden corn!”

The unique Corn Palace Festival originated by Sioux City in 1887, has yearly grown in interest, and attractiveness until it may now bo said to be a carnival of truly national interest. It is natural that it should be so, for the Corn Palace is symbolic of the wonderful evolution of the West and replete with the life and activity of a country which has had no superior at any time or any place. Here an all-wise Providence has stored in the bosom of the j earth a golden reserve, to be revealed I to man when the time has ripened, j more precious than that which glistened and shimmered in Captain Suter’s mill dam and ch’anged the history of the Pacific Coast. Tor countless ages tlie prairie lay a vast monotono of sound and color. But at last, like the en•chanted Princess in the fairy tale, at the kiss of the Prince, it awoke to magic life at the touch of the settlors’ ' plow and the mellow soil yielded up its treasure of buried wealth in thousands upon thousands of rows of yellow corn. In the early days when the Indian and tho buffalo were still lords of the prairie, tho country along the Jim, the Big Sioux and the Floyd Rivers was a semi-neutral ground, where, even then, the squaws raised the winter supply of corn, and carefully “cached” it in tho fall to save it from the depredations of rival tribes. The red man in his wanderings had fixed witli unerring instinct upon the region most responsive to his primitiyo cultivation, and following in his footsteps the white settlers raised the native plant and after thirty years of culture offer the record of unfailing crops, year after year. When the perennial bounty of the crops of this region had been thus satisfactorily demonstrated, the people naturally were eager to proclaim their good fortune to the world. A sort of harvest home on a grand scale was proposed and the thought finally materialized as the first Corn Palace. Tho natural evolution of the idea, together with the growth of the surrounding country and the city have developed the Corn Palace from an experiment costing 825,000 to an annual carnival not to he thought of at an expenditure less than SIOO,OOO. Year after year the brains of the management have been taxed to devise new features; year after year tho ladies of Sioux City have vied with each other,in designing and executing as a labor of love, decorations, which if performed bv paid labor, would have cost thousands of dollars.

j The people are more enthusiastic j than ever before this year, as they | wish to attract the multitudes 1 who will visit the World’s Fair i from all parts of this country and from | foreign lands. The Corn Palace Fes- | tival will begin September 20, continuing until Cctober 18, inclusive, and I every nerve will be strained to make it i tlie culmination of all previous seasons, . as Sioux City people have a reputation j to maintain as the originators of the 1 most distinct National Carnival of the country, which they expect to triumphantly vindicate in this World's Fair Year. Those who have attended any of the Corn Palace Festivals of previous , years do not need to be reminded what , wonderful specimens of creative art they have been, and so far as they are concerned it is only necessary to add that the Palace of 1893 will eclipse its predecessors to the full extent that experience gained can add to the beauty of design and decorations, backed by the most generous outlay of money that has ever been made for the purpose. It will amply repay people arranging to go to the World’s Fair to time their visit and route their journeys so as to include that unique festival, the Sioux City Corn Palace. Tuey should bear in mind the fact that Sioux City is in the center of the greatest corn producing territory in the world—that lowa, Nebraska and South Dakota produce considerable more than one-fourth of the corn raised in the United States —that this change in the center of production from the middle West to the Missouri Valiev lias been almost entirely wrought during the past ten years: and then try to imagine the wonderful condition of commercial activity that has accompanied it- It is impossible to reach anything like a true conception of “the busy West” without visiting the Sioux City Corn Palace, because in no other way can a correct idea of the magnificent resources of this vast agricultural region and of the genius and enterprise which has so rapidly transformed it, be obtained. The like of the Corn Palace can be seen nowhere else on the globe, and the experience of this most memorable year in the history of the continent will bo incomplete without it. The expense of attendance will be very slight, as there will be low rates from all points. Tho Corn Palace is the artistic tribute of the West to the most distinctively American plant and product which we have, and the tourist who goes to the World’s Fair needs to visit it to understand the Great West, as in the recreations as well as In the industries of a people are revealed their social and economic conditions.