Wall Drug, Tourist destination in Wall, South Dakota, US
Wall Drug is a sprawling complex of interconnected buildings in the small town of Wall, South Dakota, combining retail stores, restaurants, art galleries, and a working pharmacy under a shared roof. The compound stretches across several city blocks with covered walkways, interior courtyards, and more than a dozen themed rooms styled after the American West.
Ted Hustead, a Nebraska pharmacist, bought the drugstore in Wall in 1931. Business was slow until his wife Dorothy advertised free ice water to travelers heading to Mount Rushmore, 60 miles west. Their son Bill, also a pharmacist, joined in 1951 and turned it into a cowboy-themed mall with an art gallery cafe, a western art museum, a chapel and an 80-foot brontosaurus by Emmet Sullivan.
The wooden passages and courtyards display hand-painted signs with cowboy and prairie motifs, while the retail rooms are decorated with historic saddles, horseshoes, and wagon wheels. Visitors see reconstructed 19th-century saloon fronts and can photograph themselves beside life-size fiberglass figures of cowboys and frontier characters.
The complex opens daily and offers free admission to all areas, including the galleries and exhibition rooms. Visitors find public restrooms, parking directly in front of the entrance, and can move freely even during short stops.
The 80-foot brontosaurus visible from Interstate 90 was designed by Emmet Sullivan, who also made the dinosaurs at Dinosaur Park in Rapid City and at Dinosaur World in Arkansas. Billboards for the store line roughly 650 miles of Interstate 90 from Minnesota to Billings, Montana, painted by South Dakota artists including Dobby Hansen and Barry Knutson of Philip.
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