Joan and Keith's Travels: June 2014

Day 10

While enroute - we stopped at:

Gavin's Point Dam

	• Location:	River Mile 811.1
	• Structure Type:	Earth Fill
	• Structure Width:	8,700 Feet
	• River Elevation (Pool):	1,208 Feet
	• River Elevation (Outflow):	1,165 Feet
	• Waterfall:	45 Feet
	• Date Built:	Built 1952 To 1955

The Gavins Point Dam is located just west of Yankton, South Dakota. It is the first of the six major Missouri River dams when heading upstream, or the last of the six when heading downstream. It was authorized in 1944 as part of the Pick-Sloan Act, which sought to control the floods on the Missouri River and provide electrical power as a side benefit.

While being the smallest of the 6 major dams, the Gavins Point dam is still very impressive at 8,700 feet long and 74 feet high, with a typical waterfall of 45 feet. The spillway is 664 feet long and features 14 tainter gates, each 40 feet wide by 30 feet tall. The power plant has three generators each with a capacity of 44 megawatts, for a total maximum output of 132.32 megawatts. However, the powerplant typically runs at about 120-megawatts of power output, enough to supply the needs of 65,000 people. From this point and north to eastern Montana, the river is very much like a stairway with each dam being a tall step. Water flows down these steps, generating electricity on each step. As a result, water that flows through the powerhouse at Gavins Point dam may have generated power 6 different times so far.

The Gavins Point Dam is a major center for recreation for the upper plains area. There are fishing and boating opportunities, a visitor center that offers power house tours, and a well developed campground. History remembers news anchor Tom Brokaw who was a tour guide at the Gavins Point Dam in 1958. Downstream, the Missouri River channel is untamed most of the way down to Sioux City, one of the only non-channelized portions of the Mighty Mo downstream of central Montana.

The Gavins Point Dam garnered a lot of attention during the historic flood of 2011. The flood was caused by record snowfalls and then record spring rains. The large storage dams could not hold all of this water, so it was released downstream. The US Army Corps of Engineers had no choice but to let the water through Gavins Point. The flow reached an all time high volume of 150,000 cubic feet per second on June 14, 2011, six times the typical flow rate. All this water caused massive flooding downtream. The flooding lingered through the summer of 2011, and the resulting silt covered large swathes of farmland, causing the 2012 crops to be lost as well.

As the water flow returned to more normal levels, the US Army Corps of Engineers noted an anomoly with the dam structure. Water flow was completely turned off between 8 AM and 4 PM on Wednesday, May 9, 2012, to give access to the spillway apron to be check with ground penetrating radar. A small amount of concrete damage was found, some errosion of a gravel frost blanket, and a few small voids in the gravel under the spillway. This damage was not considered to be serious. The Corps fixed the structure during the summer of 2012.

The next stop enroute is

The Corn Palace!

The World's Only Corn Palace is Mitchell's premier tourist attraction. Some 500,000 tourists come from around the nation each year to see the uniquely designed corn murals. The city's first Corn Palace was built as a way to prove to the world that South Dakota had a healthy agricultural climate.

Eight years before the turn of the 20th century -1892- when Mitchell, South Dakota was a small, 12-year-old city of 3,000 inhabitants - the WORLD’S ONLY CORN PALACE was established on the city’s Main Street. During its over 100 years of existence, it has become known worldwide and now attracts more than a half a million visitors annually. The palace was conceived as a gathering place where city residents and their rural neighbors could enjoy a fall festival with extraordinary stage entertainment – a celebration to climax a crop-growing season and harvest. This tradition continues today with the annual Corn Palace Festival held in late August each year.

By 1905 the success of the Corn Palace had been assured and a new Palace was to be built, but this building soon became too small. In 1919, the decision to build a third Corn Palace was made. This one was to be permanent and more purposeful than its predecessors. The present building was completed in 1921, just in time for the Corn Palace Festivities. That winter Mitchell hosted its first boys state basketball tournament. The building was considered to have the finest basketball arena in the upper Midwest area.

In the 1930’s, steps were taken to recapture the artistic decorative features of the building and minarets and kiosks of Moorish design were added restoring the appearance of early day Corn Palace.

Today, the Corn Palace is more than the home of the festival or a point of interest of tourists. It is a practical structure adaptable to many purposes. Included among its many uses are industrial exhibits, dances, stage shows, meetings, banquets, proms, graduations arena for Mitchell High School and Dakota Wesleyan University as well as district, regional and state basketball tournaments. USA Today named the Corn Palace one of the top 10 places in America for high school basketball.

The Palace is redecorated each year with naturally colored corn and other grains and native grasses to make it “the agricultural show-place of the world”. They currently use 13 different colors or shades of corn to decorate the Corn Palace: red, brown, black, blue, white, orange, calico, yellow and now we have green corn! A different theme is chosen each year, and murals are designed to reflect that theme. Ear by ear the corn is nailed to the Corn Palace to create a scene. The decorating process usually starts in late May with the removal of the rye and dock. The corn murals are stripped at the end of August and the new ones are completed by the first of October.

Cherie Ramsdell is the current panel designer. The Corn Palace is known around the world as a folk-art wonder on the prairie of South Dakota.

Under construction for this years new theme!

After Leaving the Corn Palace it was a beautiful drive as we headed to Oacoma, South Dakota.

Al's Oasis Campground in Oacoma

After we arrived at our campground

we traveled to the Akta Lakota Museum

The Akta Lakota Museum & Cultural Center opened in 1991 on the campus of St. Joseph’s Indian School. The words “Akta Lakota,” meaning “to honor the people,” were chosen because the museum is truly intended to honor and preserve the rich culture of the Lakota people, the students at St. Joseph’s Indian School and for thousands who visit the museum each year.

The Akta Lakota is housed in the former school building; an octagon shaped building with 14,000 square feet of display space. The museum’s collection features art, artifacts and educational displays that depict the proud heritage of the Lakota people. Much of the museum’s original collection came from gifts given to St. Joseph’s by alumni and friends since the school opened in 1927. Since the museum opened, it has acquired many new pieces and continually strives to add relevant pieces to the collection. The museum also houses a Collector’s Gallery, which gives local artists a place to display and sell their work.