Badlands - the outskirts

Monday morning I drove out to Mount Rushmore, but I'll hold off on posting pics since I may be going out there again today. Later I headed east to the famous Badlands and on the way I stopped at Wall, a tiny community that owes its existence to a marketing genius named Ted Hustead who started a small pharmacy here in 1931. Rather than succumb to the financial difficulties of the ongoing Depression he expanded his business and started a marketing campaign to draw customers from near and far, beginning with the promise of "free ice water", which the place still offers.

Today his "Wall drug store" is a shopping center with all kinds of businesses. The whole concept is wonderfully kitchy, with fake dinosaurs and a variety of cowboy-related items, wooden indian figures etc, etc. There are now billboards luring travelers from hundreds of miles away, and they even have signs around the world that give the distance to Wall, or carry enticing texts like "How many miles to Wall drug?" and "Where in the world is Wall Drug?". Absolutely brilliant!

After Wall I drove on to a small outdoors museum called Prairie Homestead, which shows an authentic homesteading dwelling that's part sod house part wooden. It gives a good impression of the hardships of farming life as it was in the first half of the 20th century in this dry, windswept area on the outskirts of the Badlands. If you go there be sure to look out for maybe their most peculiar attraction - the white praire dogs, bred from an albino male caught in 1966.

How it all started:


Wonderful kitch:


Some random kid on a jackalope, a fictional creature they try to fool tourists with. It's very much tongue in cheek, with hunting licenses and all (one criteria for a license is a max IQ of 50).


A part sod, part wooden homesteader house:


Inside:


They have poultry running around freely to increase authenticity.


White prairie dogs.


More pics here.