How a desperate idea on a hot afternoon turned Wall, South Dakota into a road trip legend

It’s bigger than you’d ever expect

Wall, South Dakota, has about 800 people and one address everyone knows: 510 Main Street.

That’s where Wall Drug sits, a 76,000-square-foot roadside attraction that started as a 24-by-60-foot pharmacy during the Great Depression and grew into one of the most recognized stops on any American road trip.

More than 2 million people pull in every year.

The story of how a desperate idea on a hot summer afternoon built all of this is worth knowing before you walk through the door.

A struggling family and a curtain in the back

Ted and Dorothy Hustead bought the only drugstore in Wall in December 1931. The town had 326 people, most of them farmers battered by drought and the Depression.

The whole family, including their young son Billy, lived behind a curtain in the back of the store. Ted and Dorothy gave themselves five years to make it work.

By the summer of 1936, time was nearly up. That’s when Dorothy came up with the idea that would change everything.

Free ice water on a scorching highway

Dorothy noticed travelers baking on the highway outside and proposed a simple fix: put up signs offering free ice water to anyone headed toward the Badlands. Ted drove out to post the first batch.

By the time he got back, cars had already pulled into the lot.

The offer cost almost nothing to deliver, but it stopped people who had no other reason to pull over.

That one summer afternoon in 1936 turned a failing pharmacy into something people talk about for the rest of their lives.

300 hand-painted signs spread across three states

Ted kept going. He put up more signs in both directions, inspired by the sequential Burma-Shave roadside signs popular at the time.

Today, about 300 Wall Drug signs line highways across South Dakota, Wyoming and North Dakota. Every single one gets hand-painted by local South Dakota artists.

Over the decades, signs have turned up at the London Underground and even the South Pole, posted there by traveling service members and tourists.

The billboards are still the store’s main form of advertising.

From 1,440 square feet to a city block

The original pharmacy ran 1,440 square feet. Now Wall Drug covers nearly an entire city block in downtown Wall.

Ted’s son Bill joined the business in 1951 and spent the next several decades pushing the place outward, adding shops, restaurants, a chapel, an art gallery and a backyard play area.

The whole thing operates under a single family-owned business rather than as a collection of individual tenants.

What you walk into today is the result of 70-plus years of one family building something one addition at a time.

Free ice water is still on the house

That original promise has never gone away. Wall Drug still gives out free ice water to everyone who walks in.

On a busy summer day, the store reports handing out up to 20,000 cups. Coffee runs 5 cents a cup, self-serve.

Active military get free coffee and donuts, a tradition that took root when Minuteman missile crews from nearby Ellsworth Air Force Base started passing through.

Free bumper stickers are available too, which is part of how Wall Drug ends up on cars in all 50 states.

Close to a million donuts roll out every year

Wall Drug makes its donuts in small batches, hand-cranked into the fryer and frosted by hand. The store reports selling nearly one million of them annually.

The Western Art Gallery Restaurant seats 530 people and turns out home-style food including roast beef, buffalo burgers and hot beef sandwiches.

The pie counter moves more than 200,000 slices a year in three flavors: cherry, apple and blueberry. The kitchen doesn’t stop.

On summer weekends, the dining room fills up fast.

Over 300 original paintings line the dining room walls

The Western Art Gallery Dining Rooms hold more than 300 original oil paintings and illustrations, and the collection ranks among the largest privately owned Western art collections in the country.

Artists like N.C. Wyeth, Harvey Dunn and Louis Glanzman are represented throughout the space.

A carved cedar pillar in the Art Gallery Cafe came from a tree that was 187 years old when it was cut, and carries the likenesses of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.

Nearby pillars feature carved portraits of Crazy Horse, Red Cloud, Gall and Spotted Tail.

An 80-foot dinosaur you can see from the interstate

The Backyard is a 14,000-square-foot indoor and outdoor space that opened in the mid-1990s. An 80-foot brontosaurus sculpture, designed by artist Emmet Sullivan, rises high enough to spot from Interstate 90.

Inside, you can climb on a giant jackalope, pose next to a miniature Mount Rushmore and watch an animatronic T-Rex roar and blow smoke.

Kids can pan for gold at three mining stations or run through the Train Station Water Show in summer.

Nine collections of historical photos, more than 1,400 images total, document South Dakota from the 1870s through the 1930s.

A chapel tucked inside the noise

Somewhere in the middle of the crowds and the souvenir shops, there’s a quiet room.

The Traveler’s Chapel went in during 1984 at Bill Hustead’s direction, modeled after the chapel at New Melleray Abbey near Dubuque, Iowa, built by Trappist monks in the 1850s.

The stained glass windows came from a church in Pierre, South Dakota, that stood for more than a century. The chapel is non-denominational and open to everyone.

It sits a few steps off the main floor, and most people walk right past without knowing it’s there.

Four generations, one family, 90-plus years

Ted founded it, Bill expanded it, Bill’s son Rick now serves as chairman and Rick’s daughter Sarah serves as vice president. The Husteads are in their fourth generation at the same address.

Faith drove the family from the start.

Ted and Dorothy chose Wall specifically because the town had a Catholic church where they could attend daily Mass. The family has described themselves as stewards of the business rather than owners, a word choice that says something about how they’ve approached nearly a century of decisions.

Wall Drug sits right between the Badlands and the Black Hills

Wall Drug is eight miles north of the Pinnacles Entrance to Badlands National Park, about an 11-minute drive south. Mount Rushmore sits roughly 60 miles to the west.

Custer State Park, the Crazy Horse Memorial and Black Hills National Forest are all within reach. If you’re driving across western South Dakota, Wall sits right in the middle of it.

Whether you stop for five minutes or two hours, it breaks up the drive and puts you at the edge of some of the best scenery in the region.

Visit Wall Drug in Wall, South Dakota

You can walk into Wall Drug any day of the year at 510 Main Street in Wall, South Dakota, just off Interstate 90 at exits 109 and 110.

Hours vary by season, so check the official website before you go for current times and any admission details for specific attractions inside. The ice water and coffee are free as always.

Give yourself at least an hour if you want to see the art gallery, the backyard and the chapel. Two hours if you plan to eat.

This article was created with AI assistance and human editing.

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