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DIGGING WALL DRUG
Free ice water is only the beginning of this story.
By Erik Johnson, Jayplay writer
Some signs have made it as far as the South Pole.
There are signs.
There are signs. Thousands of them, from massive metropolises to some of the most remote regions of the world. London commuters see them stuck to the back of double-decker buses. As do rail commuters in Kenya, metro riders in Paris and visitors to the Taj Mahal. A post in Bien Hoa, Vietnam, tells passers-by they're only 10,659 miles away from Wall Drug, a drugstore in a tiny town called, appropriately enough, Wall, in the middle
of nowhere — South Dakota.
of nowhere — South Dakota. Wall will be my home for the next three days, and Wall Drug is the lure. If the sheer quantity of signs are any indication, I've been set up for either a huge disappointment or an incredible weekend adventure, one that you might want to take too, if you're looking for an unconventional road trip during fall break.
ventional road trip during fall break. The 340-mile stretch of interstate between Sioux Falls and Rapid City, South Dakota, is table-top flat. The only notable scenery is farmland stretching into a dreary abyss. A 75-mph speed limit tempts cross-country drivers to test the limits of their vehicles. My 1993 sea-foam green Honda Civic - think of a sun-bleached mid-80s bridesmaid dress - begins to shake violently at around 94, so I slow it down to a steady, but respectable, 90. Southerly winds whip dust from rain-thirsty fields into mountainous swirls that barrel across the highway and cause the back end of semi-trucks to sway in and out of their lanes.
their lanes.
Lurching over the first hill in nearly 30 miles, a handpainted, aged wooden sign flies by in a blur. "Stop at WALL DRUG!" It's a pattern that continues every few hundred yards for the next 300 miles. "Have you dug WALL DRUG" ... "Free Ice Water in WALL DRUG!" ... "T-Rex NEW!" And as the sun slowly descends over the Missouri River Valley in Chamberlain, S.D., anxiety falls over me. This is my final destination, and it had better be as good or better than advertised.
as good or better than advertised. The advertising started in 1931 when Dorothy and Ted Hustead bought the only drugstore in Wall, a town of 326 people wiped out by drought and the Depression. Needing business and noticing the number of travelers passing the store each day on the nearby highway, Dorothy suggested Ted place a sign near the highway offering free ice water. By the time Ted returned, travel
ers were already lined up for the free refreshments. The first sign worked, and for the next 30 years Ted would post signs on nearly every major highway in the Union, beckoning anyone and everyone to make a stop at the South Dakota drugstore offering free ice water. Most highway signs were removed during Lyndon B. Johnson's term as president under the Highway Beautification Act, but the signs remained in South Dakota, scattered on roadsides around the country, and elsewhere in the world remained.
elsewhere in the world remained.
Today, the lure of free ice water clearly is not what it used to be. Travelers brave enough to walk past the $1.50 bottles of Evian and settle for what comes out of the tap can get free water anywhere. But still, more than two-million road-weary travelers stop in Wall every year because the average summer day. What was
two-million road-weary travelers stop in Vienna —20,000 or more on the average summer day. What was once a lowly drugstore desperate for customers is now a multi-million dollar a year business that thrives on the power of cheap advertising and, of course, the sucker in all of us.
Day One Most visitors to Wall Drug end up there after driving a 39-mile loop through the North Unit of Badlands National Park. Here, sharp peaks stretch above deep voids in rocky earth, a sea of mountaintops among an ocean of prairie.The Badlands Loop road sits on seemingly impassible terrain that contorts around banked turns, drivers totally blind to what may lie ahead.
Stopping for a breather
but a new sign says coffee is only a nickel. It's 9 a.m. and the Best Western continental breakfast I ate three hours earlier only provided decaf, so I could use a cup or four. I wonder for a moment if refills are free.
Mayor Dave Hahn spends most of his time at the airport
Stopping for a breather midway through the park, a 70-something couple, Ron and Junie from Vermont, ask me to take their picture. Ron is clearly comfortable in boatshoes, cut-off jean shorts, a blue polo, heavy gold shades and, inexplicably, three gold watches. "This is the most exciting thing we've seen in days," says Ron, eying the lonely watch on his left wrist. "We're headed to Wall Drug next." Ron's seeming obsession with time creeps me out, so I give them a quick 'see ya there' and make it a point to beat them out of the parking lot.
I wonder for a moment if refills are free.
Downtown Wall is only a block long, shorter in length than Strong Hall. Cars with license plates from across the country and beyond — Maine, Florida, New Mexico, California, Alaska and Quebec, to name a few — park along each sidewalk, as well as two rows in the middle of the street. Wall Drug dominates the east side of the street. On the west side there's an assortment of more souvenir shops pushing Black Hills gold, cowboy gear and close-out T-shirts from the summer's Sturgis Harley Davidson Rally, a small café and what looks to be the only bar in town.
only bar in town.
As I park my car and take a moment to stretch, a magnificent example of social diversity unfolds in front of me: blue-haired octogenarians share the sidewalk with cowboys and roving hippies, distraught-looking parents with their children walk
them out of the parking lot. Safely out of the Badlands, the signs for my icy utopia emerge once again. The water is still free and abundant.
with their children walk alongside leather-clad Harleyheads. All eyes are big and bright, confused but eerily calm, as if they've just been shot out of a cannon only to find the landing a shapeless mound of velvet pillows, all thinking the same thing: "What is this strange but wonderful place I've been duped into stopping at?"
Strolling down Main Street, Ron spots me from across the street and shoots a wave with his two-watched wrist, so I quickly duck inside the nearest door.
The drugstore has four separate entrances, and I stumble into the fourth. To my left, a cowboy orchestra of three animated plastic figures that look like wax replicas of Blazing Saddles' Slim Pickens left out in the sun play an unrecognizably hokey tune, swaying side to side. The rest of the shop is a mix of strange souvenirs — Davey Crockett Coonskin caps, Chip Chuckers (plastic cow patty replicas), horseshoe coat racks, stuffed jackalopes, an assortment of 30 Wall Drug shot glasses and leather whips at $4.98 each.
whips at $4.98 each.
The Wall Drug mall to the right is a 100-foot walk-way straight out of a Western movie. About 14 shops line a