Corn Palaces and Butter Queens: A History of Crop Art and Dairy Sculpture

INTRODUCTION: Corn Palaces, Crop Art, and Butter Sculpture

XIII Introduction Corn Palaces, Crop Art, and Butter Sculpture On reflection more wonderful seems the art that has been created from materials [so] common. —Sioux City Journal, October 7, 1891 The Sioux City Corn Palace celebration in 1891 opened with a grand parade. Mounted police units, carriages full of city and county officials, and three marching bands accompanied King Corn and Queen Cerea as they made their triumphal way to the palace. James E. Booge, a local businessman who was president of the organizing committee, played the role of monarch, and Mrs. J. H. Farnsworth, coordinator of the ladies’ groups who had decorated the palace interior, was his consort. Both wore red robes and crowns of corn. The bands played “Hail Columbia” to announce their arrival, and Captain George Kingsnorth, manager of the palace and the former town sheriff, carried the train of the king’s cape as they processed to the stage. Queen Cerea spoke first. Picking up a huge, corn-covered key, she presented it to the king, saying, “I hereby place in your majesty’s most mighty hand, the key to the Corn Palace of 1891.” The king accepted the key and declared the 1891 Corn Palace “open to the world,” admonishing the audience to “take good care of it.”1 According to the local newspaper, despite rain, this dignified, brief ceremony brought consternation to Booge’s mischievous friends in the crowd who had planned to tease him by disrupting his speech with thunderous applause at “untimely” moments. The speech was so short that they didn’t have time to do so. Thwarted, they stormed the stage and XIV IN T RODUCT ION carried the king on their shoulders back to his carriage, where with the band in the lead they “set out to do the town.” Despite the fact that the “Cloud King” was also “reigning” at the moment, the good-natured Booge “smiled upon the rain-soaked populace that thronged the street as if there were no such things as rheumatism or bronchial troubles in all his realm.” The procession soon disbanded and the people returned to the palace to enjoy a band concert.2 The King Corn episode is telling in a number of ways. It took place at a huge exhibition building (Figure I.1) that was covered, inside and out, with decorative murals made from corn, grains, and grasses. Stretching across two city blocks, the building even had a trolley line running through its center. It was the fifth such building that the citizens of Sioux City had erected. Each year since 1887, the leaders of the community had organized an exposition company to sponsor the Corn Palace and the weeklong celebration that accompanied it. The event was widely publicized and brought thousands of visitors to the town. Across the country and even abroad, Sioux City was known as the Corn Palace City. The men who had organized it were the city’s boosters: they knew that the more attention they brought to their town, the more investment would follow. The Corn Palaces were proof of the rich bounty of the country, and railroads, government officials, industry leaders, and real-estate interests were ready to lend their aid in sponsorships as a means of bringing new people and new capital to their community. Figure I.1. The 1891 Sioux City Corn Palace was so big it stretched across two city blocks. Courtesy of the Sioux City Public Museum, Sioux City, Iowa. XV INTRODUCTION The opening ceremonies provided the fun of a masquerade and the delight of a public spectacle, but they also suggest a sense of ownership by a populace who felt free to carry their mock king into the rain. On the one hand, the images of the monarchs and their palace satisfied fantasies of prestige and luxury; on the other hand, the people knew that they had created this corn-covered building, and it represented them. The opening ceremonies involved a sense of carnival fun but also the seriousness of business. The corn-covered building and the homage to King Corn epitomized the region’s sense of prosperity and its hopes for the future. The king and his palace became icons of Sioux City’s abundance. The events in Sioux City in 1891 were repeated, in different ways, by other midwestern cities celebrating their agricultural triumphs during this era. Between the 1870s and the 1930s, numerous large exhibition...