Wall Drug Store!

What Is Wall Drug Store?

This is, without a doubt, the biggest intentional tourist trap in all of South Dakota!

What Makes It Historical?

In December of 1931, pharmacist, Ted Hustead, and teacher, Dorothy Hustead, bought a drug store in the far-flung town of Wall, South Dakota, named for the wall of rock making up Badlands National Park! They gave it five years to make it or break it, and they got right up to the edge of breaking it! One hot summer’s day, in 1936, Mrs. Hustead got up from an attempted nap, unable to sleep from all the traffic passing on the highway, and the lightbulb went on! To save their store, they’d use signs to lure those hot cars off the highway with free refreshment and load them up with supplies for the rest of their journey!

That’s just what they did! The Husteads based their signs off the classic Burma Shave campaigns, with a web of signage now spanning hundreds of miles in either drection from Wall, showing thirsty drivers en route to Mount Rushmore just how far they were from free ice water or a root beer! It worked like a charm, and since that low point in the Great Depression, Wall Drug has grown from a tiny drug store off the beaten path into its very own must-visit destination with a shopping mall, a gallery of original Western art, a chapel, an arcade, gold panning, and lots of family photo opps! To this day, you can still get your cup of water for free and a coffee for 5 cents, but I went for one of their famous sticky buns!

How Can I #HelpTheHelpers?

Buy something from the Wall Drug Store!
Be a responsible visitor! Please respect the signs and pathways, and treat all structures and artifacts with respect. They’ve endured a lot to survive into the present. They’ll need our help to make it into the future!