Beyond The Corn Palace: The Forgotten Midwestern Mania For Building Landmarks Out Of Grain

“In 1890, Forest City, Iowa, built a palace – not of stone, or wood, or brick, but of flax. … The inventive structure was not the only one of its kind. In the late 1880s, the Midwest was seized by a craze for building palaces out of grains – hay, bluegrass, alfalfa, and corn, corn, corn.”