Wall Drug

Before you even get to the South Dakota you begin to see signs along the highway saying "Free Ice Water at Wall Drug", "Stop at Wall Drug", " 5 cent coffee at Wall Drug" and this continues for miles and miles.  We began to see the signs when we got into Minnesota long before we were even close to South Dakota.  Now, we had heard about Wall Drug from my brother and my mother in law.  They both had told us we had to stop at Wall Drug and we did!
Wall Drug is located in Wall, SD which is a town in Pennington county,  Population 766 with a median income of $36,500 and a median age of 42.  It was incorporated in 1908 and was named after the high wall of the Badlands National Monument that the town is located near. 
Wall Drug is a tourist attraction that is a cowboy themed shopping mall/department store which includes a drug store, gift shop, restaurants, a western art museum, a chapel, and an 80 ft Dinosaur that sits on I-90 to welcome you.  It is all located in the Wall Drug Store. 
In 1931 Ted Hustead, a Nebraska Pharmacist was looking for a small town  where he could establish his business.  He came to Wall and liked the town and it had a good Church.  He bought Wall Drug and he did make a living.  Business was slow going until his wife, Dorothy, came up with an idea to get more business. Driving through South Dakota, especially in the summer, was a long dry ride.  She came up with the idea of advertising "free ice water" by putting up signs along the highway.  The rest is history.  Wall Drugs takes in about $10 Million dollars and is visited by 2 million tourist annually.  It has over 500 miles of billboards on I-90 stretching from Minnesota to Billings, Montana and spends about $400,000 on billboards every year. 
When you drive into Wall it is not much of a town.  There are a few motels and some local restaurants but that is about it until you get to Wall Drug.  Wall Drug takes up almost one whole side of the downtown area.  It is a huge and sprawling tourist attraction that could take  hours to take it all in but can also be a quick pit stop if that is all the time you have.  The main building is one HUGE gift shop, with a drug store in the middle of it and then lots of different shops, restaurants, etc.  It has animatronics country bands in the front and back of the gift shop and a  big area called the 'Back Yard" behind the main store where kids can play on a big Jackalop, sit on a covered wagon, play on swing sets or just run. There is a big T Rex looking for food, gem mining area and more shops also.
If you are ever driving across South Dakota you have to stop at Wall Drug.  It is just something everyone should visit once in their life.  It was fun, the people are friendly and it was packed with tourists.  The Husteads, advertising "free ice water" really knew how to build a business!