Wall Drug

Somewhere in the middle of nowhere driving through South Dakota we saw the first sign for a place called Wall Drug. It advertised free ice water and five cent coffee. Then we saw more and more Wall Drug billboards, advertising ice cream, homemade donuts, cowboys, and dinosaurs. I did not understand what Wall Drug was but I knew it was something we had to explore.

Wall Drug is located in Wall, South Dakota, which gets its name from a nearby rock formation that looks like a giant wall. It was founded in 1931 and quickly became famous for its offers of free ice water and strange billboards. The store itself began as a simple drug store and has expanded into a gigantic souvenir mall museum of sorts, unlike anything I have seen before (and I have certainly been to a number of souvenir mall museums).

The store is made up of many different rooms, each appearing to be a different store but actually just being the same store. The wall space in every room is completely full of strange art that involves buffalos or Mount Rushmore. There were also an uncountable number of taxidermied wildlife and cowboy statues. Hundreds and hundreds of variations on the same souvenirs are offered throughout the many rooms. Highlights included a bizarrely complete collection of those mugs with names on them (‘Norm’ mugs can be difficult to come by); an extensive t-shirt selection including every possible combination of buffalos, Mount Rushmore, and the American flag; and my personal favorite, the jackalope section.

The five cent coffee was offered in most rooms. The homemade maple donuts were incredible and I also tried some delicious blueberry pie. The “backyard” area included a jackalope you could ride and a giant mechanical monkey that played piano for 50 cents. The historical photo area was also very nice.

Wall Drug may have been the last place we visited before entering the “beautiful stuff” part of our trip, but it will certainly stand out to me as one of the weirdest and best things we did. I will include a few more pictures for those who are curious.