Wall Drug

1931, December. Ted and Dorothy Hustead had just bought the one and only drug store in a town called Wall. The settlers named it this because it is on the edge of the South Dakota Badlands. Needless to say, business was not booming at this point in time. The family decided to give the store five years to grow.

Summer 1936, the business still had not grown much. With two children to care for times were not easy. One sweltering night after being kept awake from passing cars on Route 16A Dorothy has a personal epiphany. Her thought was that driving across the hot prairie travelers get thirsty. They want water. Ice water!!

Therefore, with the Depression in full swing, they installed the billboards.

It worked! Travelers WERE parched and business had never been better.

The next summer the family hired eight girls to help with the busy summer crowds.

(Now the Drug store draws up to twenty thousand people on a good summer day with almost one hundred employees on a given day)

Free ice water brought the Hustead's a long way. This story also teaches an important lesson- there is absolutely no place on God's earth that is Godforsaken. No matter where you live, you can succeed, because wherever you are you can reach out to other people with something that they need!