Apart from Wall Drug, one other reason to visit is the chance to tour the Minuteman Missile National Historic Site (605/433-5552, daily, $12), off I-90 exit 131. Wall Drug is at the center of Wall, South Dakota (pop. A younger generation of Husteads still runs Wall Drug, the ice water is still free, and the coffee still costs a nickel. Rushmore replica, a restaurant-café seating more than 520, and shops for everything from postcards to cowboy boots. Photo opportunities abound, thanks to the 80-foot-long dinosaur, 6-foot rabbit, giant fiberglass jackalope, Mt. But today’s 50,000-square-foot Wall Drug is a different story: It can feed, clothe, and entertain the entire family for hours. Originally, not much, apart from that glass of water. Address: 16 South Broadway, Watertown, SD 57201.
#Road to nowhere south dakota free#
Before the 1960s era of “highway beautification” banned most billboards, Wall Drug touted its free ice water on 3,000 billboards in all 50 states.īut what’s waiting at the end of all those billboards? An 80-ft dinosaur marks the entrance of Wall, South Dakota. Five Loaves Bakery is open Wednesday through Friday from 7 a.m. Proud South Dakotans have covered foreign landscapes with signs proclaiming the mileage to Wall Drug, and the Husteads themselves have advertised on London buses, Amsterdam canals, and French bistros.
And they’re coming still: some 20,000 per day in the summer-well over a million a year. Spaced at intervals along the highway, like the famous Burma-Shave ads, the signs read:īefore he could return to the store, the tourists were already arriving. So in the summer of 1936, Ted Hustead erected roadside signs to tempt travelers off the highway and into his store. Why not give them an excuse to stop? Once in the store, maybe they’d buy an ice cream, or an aspirin. Then Dorothy had a brainstorm: Hundreds of people drove past Wall every day on US-16, the main route across South Dakota, battling the dusty dirt road and 90☏ summer heat. Ted Hustead bought this tiny South Dakota town’s drugstore in 1931, and for five years Ted and his wife, Dorothy, struggled to survive during the depths of the Depression. America’s most famous roadside business, Wall Drug (510 Main St., 605/279-2175) began with free ice water.
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