We’ve seen the Pheasants Forever Blog article, “The 25 Best Pheasant Hunting Towns in America,” and Mitchell’s rating as the 16^th best pheasant hunting town, and with all due respect, we disagree. 

South Dakota still maintains the largest pheasant population in the country and is the top destination for the traveling pheasant hunter. Even with the harsh winter of 2010-2011, South Dakota still maintains the right to be called “The Pheasant Capital.” In our opinion, the top 10 should include Mitchell and other South Dakota towns including Aberdeen, Pierre, Chamberlain, Mobridge, Winner, and Lemmon.

Let’s look at factors such as area bird counts, annual harvest, acres of accessible public hunting land, local Pheasants Forever chapter activities and available lodging for the traveling bird hunter.  We think the following stats for South Dakota and the Mitchell area boast well for our case that the top 10 places to pheasant hunt are all in South Dakota!

• South Dakota 2011 Pheasant Population: 6,600,000
• South Dakota Pheasants Per Mile (10yr Average): 6.04
• South Dakota 2011 Harvest: 1,555,307
• Mitchell Area/Davison County 2011 Harvest: 37,893
• South Dakota birds per hunter: 9.47
• Mitchell Area/Davison County birds per hunter: 8.00
• CRP enrollments in the state of South Dakota are currently at 1.17 million acres.

The local Pheasants Forever Chapter in Mitchell recently accepted the award for the largest Pheasants Forever Banquet Membership Chapter. With over 700 chapters across the United States and Canada, this marks the first time South Dakota has been granted such an award! For years, the Mitchell group has hosted its annual banquet on the eve of the state’s pheasant-hunting opener, regularly drawing more than 600 attendees, making it the largest outdoors-related event in the region. The money generated from the event stayed locally and was used to fund local hunting-related causes, with most of the money directed into food plot and conservation programs throughout the Mitchell area. Each spring, the group provides free seed to enrolled landowners; the seed is then planted and generally left alone, providing acres of food plots. Typically, the group donates approximately 3,000 bags of seed each year.

Not only is the hunting great, but the people are friendly, and the accommodations and the shopping extraordinary.  Mitchell boasts 17 hotels with over 1,000 rooms spread around the city, several wonderful bed & breakfasts, and many more hunting lodges and guide services for your convenience.  In addition, we also offer a wide variety of restaurants, sports bars, coffee houses, and retail shops.

Mitchell is just a little more than an hour from Sioux Falls, which is serviced by several national airlines. Mitchell also has a municipal airport along the northern edge of the city.

For all your hunting & fishing needs, stop by Cabela’s, World’s Foremost Outfitter of hunting, fishing, and outdoor gear.  This amazing “outdoorsman’s mecca” is located just south of Interstate 90 at Exit 332, and also features amazing museum-quality trophy mounts, a spectacular conservation mountain, and fantastic freshwater aquariums showcasing fish native to the Missouri River, which runs through South Dakota.  Also, make a stop by Leader Sporting Goods while you’re here, which has been outfitting outdoorsmen and handymen since 1917 and offers a wide variety of outdoor gear, firearms and tackle. 

With all that information, it’s no wonder that Mitchell, South Dakota has been regarded as one of the best pheasant hunting spots in the nation, a position it has maintained for decades. 

Join us for your next pheasant hunting adventure in Mitchell, South Dakota!

At the corner of West Third Avenue and Rowley Street in Mitchell, South Dakota is a beautiful quartzite building.  This 109-year old building once housed generations of knowledge and now preserves the memorabilia of the Corn Palace and the history and genealogy of the Mitchell area.

The handsome quartzite rock structure – only one of three such buildings left in Mitchell – dates from 1903 and is on the National Register of Historic Places.  Steel magnate Andrew Carnegie gave the City of Mitchell $12,000 for a library.  Mitchell’s prominent contractor, A. J. Kings built it and his tools and toolbox are displayed at the Carnegie Resource Center (CRC).  Also on display is a detailed four – foot to-scale model of the 1892 (the first) Corn Palace built by the grandson of A. J. Kings.

The huge dome of the CRC is adorned on its interior by the mural “Sun and Rain Clouds Over Hills”, by Oscar Howe, Yanktonai Sioux artist, who painted the mural in 1940 as a WPA project.  From 1948 through 1971, Howe designed the mural panels for the Corn Palace.  His original tempera or casein drawings can be seen at the CRC, the Dakota Discovery Museum, and in the Mitchell City Council Chambers.

In addition to the extensive print and photographic research material the CRC houses the Clyde and Mary Goin Corn Palace Collection that depicts the history of Mitchell’s three Corn Palaces.  Signed glossy photos by many of the famous performers at the Corn Palace, among them Bob Hope and Red Skelton, are displayed along with countless items of Corn Palace memorabilia.

History and genealogy researchers will find the Carnegie Resource Center (CRC) a treasure trove of information about and photographs of families, businesses, and happenings in the area from Mitchell’s beginning along the James River as Firesteel in 1879.  The all-volunteer staff welcomes visitors and will assist with researching collections of obituaries, city directories, and articles and photos in the many files.  Mitchell’s school alumni are encouraged to schedule reunion programs at the CRC.  Visitors can view diplomas, yearbooks, photos, and newspaper articles pertaining to the history of Mitchell’s public and parochial schools.

Organizations and families can also schedule social events and meetings at the CRC.  Books , monographs, historic original postcards, CDs, and DVDs are available for purchase. Admission is free!

As spring arrives, it is very exciting and heartening to see the broad development of community events designed, in both a large and small scale, to make Mitchell “the place to be” this summer! Our new creative featuring summer events will be launched in May to our target markets. Here’s your chance to see a sneak preview!

Water Window by Rebecca, 10th Grade, 2011 Youth Art Show submission

South Dakota.  It is such an incredibly rich and diverse state (and I don’t just say that because I live here!). It is so much more than grasslands, buffalo and presidential monuments.  While those are very important aspects of our Great Plains state, it is more often the small things, those places, people and events just a short drive from the travel artery that is Interstate 90, or tucked away in the corners of our communities that can really make an impact on visitors and residents.

The Dakota Discovery Museum is just one of those many places.  During March, the museum is celebrating National Youth Art Month with over 190 works of art submitted by 138 students throughout the state of South Dakota.  The exhibit is not a judged event, there is already enough (maybe too much) competition in youth activities.  At our show every child has the opportunity to express their own creativity for all to see, from simple crayon and pencil drawings on copy paper to complex mixed media works.  The show is open to all students, grades K – 12 in the state and each student can submit up to two entries.  The works of art are exhibited in a gallery setting with a public reception. Professional area artists provide feedback and encouragement for the students.

It is often a teenage or childhood experience that triggers a life-long interest in the arts.  An acquaintance recently told me that if it had not been for a high school class in photography he would likely have never thought to pursue a rewarding career as a professional photographer.  Another told me it was her participation in the city’s Summer Arts programs that taught her to look more closely at the prairies and the everyday things around her. She is now completing her Fine Arts major at the University of South Dakota.

The Dakota Discovery Museum is pleased to be part of the Mitchell, and broader South Dakota community in supporting the arts and culture of our region and in preserving its astonishing history.  Visit us to experience it all for yourself.

Is it against blog etiquette to post a link to a video? Well, if it is, oh well. We’re new at blogging so we’re posting the video anyway, because it’s worth sharing!

Before Mike Miller won awards in the NBA, he was drawing the attention of college coaches nationwide as the most highly recruited basketball player in South Dakota history. Watch the entire video featuring Mitchell‘s own, “Skinny Mike” and the World’s Only Corn Palace!

Long before there was a Corn Palace, long before there was mill on the James River and long before the French fur traders came to this area, there was a small village of perhaps 200 people.

This village, whose name we shall never know, sat on a bluff, overlooking a creek that we call Firesteel.  On the fertile banks of the creek, the villagers grew corn, beans, squash, sunflowers and amaranth.  It is the story of corn that interests us the most.

Corn is a tropical plant which needs up to 120 days to mature.  It was first domesticated near present day Mexico City, Mexico, about 5,000 years ago.  From that region, its use spread, as far south as Peru and north to the present-day southwestern United States.  The early corn remained in those confines for about 4,000 years.  It became the most
important food crop of the western hemisphere.

Somewhere around a thousand years ago, corn began to spread into cooler climates, particularly in east-central North America.  It was from there, in the woodlands around the Ohio River Valley, people began to migrate to the west a thousand years ago.  We don’t know why they began to leave the woodlands.  Perhaps there was warfare or disease or perhaps their food sources had become exhausted.  Whatever the reason,
they left and with them they brought corn.

These people ultimately settled on that bluff overlooking that creek, far north from where they first originated, and then they did something truly remarkable.  So remarkable, in fact, that modern science has not improved upon it one bit.  The people who settled on the bluff where able to take the corn they brought with them and adapt it to the very short growing season of the northern plains.

The corn they grew did not look like the corn the farmers grow today.  The ears were very small, no larger than a man’s thumb.  Despite the small size, the corn grown on the
floodplain of the creek was one of the most important foods to these first settlers.  Since there were many people living in this village they had to grow a lot of corn.  This was not “grandma’s kitchen gardening” going on here, rather, this was the first major agricultural operation in what became, a thousand years later, Mitchell, South Dakota.

A thousand years later, the villagers have been long gone, the creek below the bluff has been dammed to create Lake Mitchell and the town of Mitchell has grown around the village site.  But, for a thousand years, that site was untouched until the early part of the 20^th century when a student from Dakota Wesleyan University uncovered artifacts on a bluff overlooking a creek.

Today the site is the Mitchell Prehistoric Indian Village, the only archaeological site in South Dakota open to the public.  Each summer archaeologists come and excavate the site, and each summer we learn more about the first settlers who changed the tropical corn plant into a crop that is now the most important crop in our state.  Without these early settlers, we may not have a Corn Palace today.  The Mitchell Prehistoric Indian Village site is truly the cradle of northern plains agriculture.

During the summer you can watch as the archaeologists work and we have guided tours all year long.  The Prehistoric Indian Village is located at 3200 Indian Village Road, Mitchell South Dakota.  Our website is http://www.mitchellindianvillage.org/.  You can also learn more about the Village on our Facebook page at www.facebook.com/mitchellprehistoricindianvillage.   For more information please call 605-996-5473. This article was authored by Cindy Gregg, Executive Director of the Mitchell Prehistoric Indian Village.

As I prepare and pack for the State Tourism Conference to be held in Pierre next week, I think about Mitchell’s convention facilities and the excellent food and friendly
service they offer. So, if you are a meeting planner, I ask you to consider Mitchell, South Dakota as your next host location for your meeting, convention, or conference! Our
staff is ready to assist you in planning your event, and you will find Mitchell’s
facilities affordable, accommodating, and welcoming for all of your attendees.

The benefits and services offered to you by the Mitchell Convention & Visitors
Bureau are essential in planning a successful conference.  From registration assistance and nametags, to offering a complimentary coffee break for your group, to arranging for an official welcome from the Mayor or Chamber of Commerce, the CVB staff is ready
to help you.

Mitchell has so much to offer to your convention attendees.  Our central location right on Interstate 90 makes travel easy and convenient for conference delegates.   We also boast a variety of 17 hotels, more than 50 unique restaurants, historical and cultural attractions, and great shopping.

We have over 1,000 economically priced, relaxing, and inviting hotel/motel rooms to choose from.  From well-known chain hotels to locally-owned “mom-and-pop” establishments, we have anything to fit your needs.  After an educational day of meetings your guests can check out our variety of excellent restaurants, and choose to dine in a western-themed setting, relive the earlier days of the railroad, enjoy a cup of coffee in inviting and conversational settings, try some local home-cooking, or enjoy a great steak.  The possibilities are endless.

Your conference attendees can experience Mitchell’s historical and cultural
attractions. The World’s Only Corn Palace stands as a majestic, uniquely
American, folk art icon on the rolling prairies of South Dakota. The unique
“ear”chitecture of the Corn Palace is decorated each year with thousands of
bushels of corns, grains and native grasses.  Cabela’s features museum-like
displays providing wildlife and outdoor educational opportunities.  Travel back in time at the Carnegie Resource Center and see the Corn Palace memorabilia from the last 100+ years!  Enjoy the life, culture and the arts of pioneers and Native Americans of this region at the Dakota Discovery Museum. Experience a prehistoric dwelling at the Prehistoric Indian Village archeological site where 1,000 years ago semi-nomadic farmers/hunters harvested the first corn in this area.

You can also enjoy strolling through one of the many gift shops and art galleries that
feature unique items – some from local artists. If you’re looking for clothing for the family – you’ll find several stores with a wide variety for all ages at affordable prices.  If computers and business are part of your world we can offer that too.  If you are an antique shopper, Mitchell has several antique and second-hand stores that you’ll be able to find that perfect trinket.  You’ll also find hair & tanning salons, sports bars, bike shops, coffee houses, sewing shops, fabric and quilt stores, sporting goods stores,
western wear shops and souvenir shops.  Again, the list is endless.

Mitchell’s prime location, excellent restaurants, popular visitor attractions and
experienced CVB staff all make Mitchell an excellent choice as the host city for your conference.

Need more convincing? Request our meeting and event planner guide that will provide you with a wealth of information about why Mitchell is the perfect choice for your conference.

When I’ve traveled cross-country, people often ask where we’re from or they get a glimpse of my driver’s license (when checking into a hotel)… When we say we’re from Mitchell, South Dakota, it more often than not is followed up by a statement or question like, “I’ve been there! I went to the Corn Palace with my family,” or “Isn’t that where the Corn Palace is?” Our community’s icon has been marketed for almost 120 years and deserves to be one of the first posts to our new blog:

The World’s Only Corn Palace stands as a majestic, uniquely American, folk art icon on the rolling prairies of South Dakota. The building is famous for the huge, colorful murals on its sides, which are redesigned every year. The first Mitchell Corn Palace was built in 1892, just three years after South Dakota became a state – when the city was just twelve years old. The Corn Palace was built as an economic development tool to recruit farmers to the area by displaying agricultural bounty on the building’s exterior to prove
the fertility of the region’s soil. The first two Corn Palaces were tore down, despite popular belief that they burned down. The Corn Palace that now sits on Main Street is actually the third Corn Palace in Mitchell and was built in 1921.

If the Corn Palace stands for anything, it is a good time. Every harvest season for over 100 years, people have come together for some of the best entertainment in the country. In the beginning there were the marching bands like Sousa, followed through the years by an eclectic mix top quality entertainment. Today, the Corn Palace Festival tradition continues. The Corn Palace has always been about more than just the big
name entertainment. It’s a building that brings thousands of visitors to our community each year to view the unique folk art murals. It’s a building that enhances our lives by providing a gathering place for a wide variety of activities such as high school proms, dances, banquets, sporting events and many, many more. In fact, USA Today has named the Corn Palace as one of the Top 10 places to play High School basketball games and called it the Boston Gardens of the Midwest. It’s a building that brings our community together. The Corn Palace has evolved into a one-of-a-kind, multi-use facility with a charm and heritage unlike any other.

The estimated attendance average for sporting events at the Corn Palace over the past five years is 94,809 people annually. Sporting events include cheerleading events, gymnastics events, basketball games and tournaments, youth wrestling meets, and show choir events. The popularity of the Corn Palace for these sporting events and others is the intimacy that the Corn Palace provides to sporting teams and event spectators. While it is important to increase seating to keep and/or increase the number of sporting events hosted in the Corn Palace in the winter months, it is essential that the
intimacy and integrity of the Corn Palace is maintained.

The designing of the mural is a prestigious honor. It started with Col. Alexander Rohe in 1892. Famed American Indian Oscar Howe, was in charge of designing the panels from 1948 to 1971. Cal Schultz took over the job in 1977 and local college art teacher Cherie Ramsdell has headed up the design since 2003.

This year, when the summer days grow shorter and the crops are nearly ripe, the Corn Palace will again be celebrating. The streets will be filled with people. The stage will
come alive with acts that will enrich the legacy of the Corn Palace. See it for what it really is. A celebration of who we are and what we do, and how we spend the little time we have in this world.

Mitchell, South Dakota is famed for its nationally recognized pheasant hunting, attracting visitors from across the country. It’s an opportunity unlike any other, experiencing the thrill of the hunt amongst family and friends, and partaking in a rich tradition of sportsmanship and skill.

What many don’t realize is that late season hunting presents a myriad of advantages that may not be enjoyed by earlier visitors. Among the top reasons to schedule a late season hunt:

SAFETY: Late season is ideal for family hunts, with less crowding throughout the landscape.

SNOW: Cooler weather is less stressful on canine companions, and affords a unique experience for out of area hunters who are not accustomed to snowfall.

STRATEGY: Pheasants are “bunching up” and surprising hunters with bursts of 30-40 birds. This calls for specialized hunting tactics, which truly test a sportsman’s dexterity.

SAVINGS: Lodging rates are lower when visiting later in the season. One of Mitchell’s timeless traditions is fast approaching. The first significant snowfall often arrives in early November. Boasting the top number of birds per hunter per season, there’s nothing quite like a late season hunt!

The season ends January 1, 2012 so visit our website to book your next hunting adventure! A list of guides and services in Mitchell, SD and a list of lodging facilities in Mitchell, SD are available on our website or request a Hunting Guide to Mitchell now!