Find What You Need at South Dakota's Wall Drug Store

Where can you get a stuffed or even a real mounted Jackalope with your free ice water? Well, if your headed through Wall, South Dakota you can't help but find the Wall Drug Store that's been open since 1931. It started in 1931 with a business trial time of five years by owners Ted and Dorothy Hustead. They said that if they couldn't get the business going in that time they would quite. Now the drug store is bigger than ever and has all kinds of things to go along with your free glass of ice water.

Ted Hustead had been living in Canova, South Dakota working for other druggists after graduating from pharmacy school. He and his wife, Dorothy had received $3,000 from his fathers will and he was determined to work for himself in a small town that included a Catholic church. He found what he wanted after he and his wife began driving around the states of South Dakota and Nebraska in their Model T, Wall and the drugstore for sale there.

After their families helped them make their decision with prayer and guidance from their religious beliefs they decided to buy the store. After the first few slow months Ted made a promise to his wife, they would move on if they didn't get more business after five years. By the summer of 1936 the business hadn't grown much, and with the country in a depression it was no wonder. They had a son who was nine and a new daughter when Dorothy came up with an innovative business strategy.

She had been woken up from naps after jalopies had rattled the house from driving by the nearby Route 16A. She thought that if these people could have a reason to at least come into the store for something free, they might just buy something. And so she had the idea of advertising with catchy slogans on signs along the highway outside the town. The free thing they offered was ice water, and business grew ever since.