Famous roadside attraction and tourist stop consisting of a collection of cowboy-themed stores, including a drug store, gift shop, several restaurants, and various other stores, as well as an art gallery

How to Get There

From Rapid City (55mi) Get on I-90 E from I-190 N. Follow I-90 E to Airport Rd. Take exit 109 from I-90 E. Take Loop 90 to Main St in Wall.

Overview

Wall Drug Store, often called simply Wall Drug, is a roadside attraction and tourist stop located in the town of Wall, South Dakota, adjacent to Badlands National Park. Wall Drug consists of a collection of cowboy-themed stores, including a drug store, gift shop, several restaurants, and various other stores, as well as an art gallery and an 80-foot brontosaurus sculpture. The New York Times has described Wall Drug as "a sprawling tourist attraction of international renown [that] draws some two million annual visitors to a remote town."

The small town drugstore made its first step towards fame when it was purchased by Ted Hustead in 1931. Hustead was a Nebraska native and pharmacist who was looking for a small town with a Catholic church in which to establish his business. He bought Wall Drug, located in a 231-person town in what he referred to as "the middle of nowhere," and strove to make a living. Business was very slow until his wife, Dorothy, thought of advertising free ice water to parched travelers heading to the newly opened Mount Rushmore monument 60 miles to the west. From that time on business was brisk.

Wall Drug grew into a cowboy-themed mall and department store. Wall Drug includes a western art museum, a chapel based on the one found at New Melleray Abbey near Dubuque, Iowa, and an 80-foot brontosaurus that can be seen right off Interstate 90.

Marketing Campaign

Wall Drug earns much of its fame from its self-promotion. Billboards advertising the establishment can be seen for hundreds of miles throughout South Dakota and the neighboring states. In addition, many visitors of Wall Drug have erected signs throughout the world announcing the miles to Wall Drug from famous locations. By 1981 Wall Drug was claiming it was giving away 20,000 cups of water per day during the peak tourist season, lasting from Memorial Day until Labor Day, and during the hottest days of the summer. Most of Wall Drug's advertisement billboards can be found on an approximately 650-mile-long stretch of Interstate 90 from Minnesota to Billings, Montana. To date, Wall Drug still offers free ice water

Wall Drug has over 300 original oil paintings in the Western art Gallery Dining Rooms. This acquisition represents one of the best private collections of original Western and Illustration Art in the country. Artists featured include N. C. Wyeth, Harvey Dunn, Dean Cornwell, Louis Glanzman, and Harold Von Schmidt. Ted Hustead died in 1999. The following day, South Dakota Governor Bill Janklow began his annual State of the State address by commemorating Hustead as "a guy that figured out that free ice water could turn you into a phenomenal success in the middle of a semi-arid desert way out in the middle of someplace."

This article uses material from the Wikipedia article "Wall Drug", which is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share-Alike License 3.0