Yesterday I told you I was drinking from a mug from Wall Drug. Let me tell (or retell) some of the story of this place.
Ted and Dorothy Hustead bought a Drug Store in Wall, South Dakota. It was 1931. The town had a population of 326. It was during the Depression. The population was mostly farmers who had been broken by the Depression. Ted's father had died and left him $3000.00. They invested it in the store. They wanted to be in a small town with a Catholic church. Wall met those qualifications.
A cousin told them, "That town is in the middle of nowhere." Dorothy's father said: "Wall is just about as Godforsaken as you can get". They set a goal of five years to see what might happen. It was on a highway to the Badlands and to Mount Rushmore not yet completed.
In 1936 nothing much had changed except the highway traffic. Cars were coming by in droves heading for Rushmore on Route 16A. They weren't stopping. The Hustead's needed a way to stop the traffic. They made some "Burma Shave" type signs saying, GET A SODA GET A ROOT BEER TURN NEXT CORNER JUST AS NEAR TO HIGHWAY 16 AND 14....FREE ICE WATER WALL DRUG. By the time the signs were in place people were stopping. For hours they gave free ice water to folks in non-air conditioned cars. They also SOLD ice cream ...and other things. By the next summer they had to hire eight girls to help. Today, if you visit there it is like a little Disney World. There is 50,000 sf of store, plus things outside. The ice water is still free! The day we stopped at Wall Drug there were almost 1,000 motorcycles parked outside. They were going to and from Sturgis, South Dakota, (the cycle event of the world) and to and from Rushmore. Today, Wall is located on I- 90. Thousands drive by daily. Thousands also make the stop at this famous "watering hole" and tourist trap. It is a phenomenon...Wall Drug.
