A few weeks ago, we went to The South Dakota Badlands and Mount Rushmore. Our drive there was rather direct as we had objectives to achieve. However we did stop off at one notable place along the way, the Wall Drug Store (more about that in a minute). Now, on the way back, that is a different story. We anticipated a direct trip back to home base. But, as we commonly do, we ended up meandering through one side trip to a town after another as we went driving through South Dakota.
As I said, on the way to the SD Badlands and Mount Rushmore we made one notable stop, The Wall Drug Store located at 510 Main St, Wall, South Dakota. Honestly, I had never heard of it before. But apparently it is fairly popular. This business has been here since the early 1900s. In 1931, Ted and Dorothy Hustead bought the only drug store (in a town called Wall) on the edge of the South Dakota Badlands. Their story is interesting. They fought for 5 years trying to make this drug store a success. Any idea what got them there? Ice Water!
A lot of cars were passing the town of Wall on the way to Yellowstone, Mount Rushmore, etc. They were all coming off of the dusty prairie parched. Or, at least that is what Dorothy thought. So, Ted put up signs along the highway and before he could get back to the store Dorothy was already pouring ice water. This grew from them having a few customers a week up to around 20,000 customers a day during the summer. This place is like a shopping mall now and, if you go out back, you can still see the well where they got their water from.
That was the one side stop that we made on the way in to the area. And, as stated, we went to the South Dakota Badlands and Mount Rushmore. On the way back, our detours and side trips went a little further. We came to an area just north of Rapid City, South Dakota that had 3 popular locales situated in the Black Hills: Sturgis, Deadwood and Spearfish Canyon.
Sturgis is famous for its annual motorcycle rally. I did a little digging and found out that the annual Sturgis Motorcycle Rally began in 1938. A man named Clarence “Pappy” Hoel bought an Indian Motorcycle franchise in Sturgis and formed a motorcycle club called the Jackpine Gypsies that same year, 1936. He held the Black Hills Classic on August 14, 1938, which consisted of 9 riders participating in one race. Since then, the annual motorcycle rally has been held consecutively with a few exceptions during World War II. And the crowd numbers have grown from a few dozen in 1938 to over 700,000 in 2015.
The town of Sturgis only has a population of about 6,600 people. So the annual motorcycle rally, which attracts people from all over the world, really brings in an economic boost to the little town. When we rolled through (end of July), it was prior to the rally (7th to the 13th of August). So, we did not see the motorcycle enthusiasts. However, there were banners up already welcoming riders. The Nomads travel on 4 wheels. So, Sturgis and the rally did not call to us. After driving around the small town for a little bit, we headed on down the road.
We saw a sign for Deadwood and headed in that direction. Mama Nomad had been there as a little girl but did not remember much about it. So, we decided to check it out. Come to find out that Deadwood was actually an illegally formed town. The land belonged to the Lakota as was directed by the 1868 Treaty of Laramie. However, in 1874 an announcement that gold was found in the Black Hills sparked a gold rush and within a short time the population peaked at around 5,000 people (current population is around 1200).
The town was lawless and rowdy. Murder was common. A famous gunman, Wild Bill Hickok, was murdered in Deadwood which is his and Calamity Jane’s final resting place. Saloons and brothels abounded and the town was growing. Things went well until a fire took out more than 300 buildings, in 1879, and caused the poorer people to leave town. That same year, Thomas Edison demonstrated the incandescent lamp. A judge in Deadwood formed an electric company and within 4 years the town had commercial electrical service way ahead of many large cities.
The City of Deadwood has an interesting history that we knew nothing about. The name sounded interesting and the scenery was beautiful. That, as many of you know, if enough to cause us to go exploring. The town was in a lower area, like a gulch. The buildings were nice and it was genuinely a cute and quaint town (adjectives that would not have been used over 100 years ago). The town is not very large and the streets are rather narrow. So it did not take us long to explore, turn around and head out.
Our last side trip, believe it or not, I pulled from a sign I saw at a rest area. But I could only remember that it had “canyon” in the name. In the Black Hills, signal is spotty. So, trying to look up the name was difficult. But, we finally figured out that the place on the rest area sign was Spearfish Canyon.
We left Deadwood and headed for Spearfish Canyon, which you access through the town of Spearfish. We arrived in Spearfish after a scenic jaunt through the higher elevations of the Black Hills. When we arrived, we went right through the middle of this little town. The streets were wider than Deadwood and the population is bigger (just over 10,000). There were old buildings that lined both sides of the street and the tops of the buildings had the original names of the buildings and the dates they were constructed.
We pulled over at a local ice cream parlor and grabbed some sweet treats. Then we began to meander down the street seeing what the town had to offer. We saw some historical signs that explained what the buildings used to be and how they became what they are now. One of the Nomad sons noticed that one building housed a game and card business. So, we had to stop in for a bit.
After our sweet treats were gone, we hopped back into Ebony and headed towards Spearfish Canyon. The canyon drive was about 20 miles or so in one direction. We decided to go a few and then turn around, as there was no way back to the Interstate from the other end. the road was lined with rock walls that ascended to the sky and they were adorned with all manner of evergreen trees. Next to the road was Spearfish Creek which flowed, babbled and sometimes turned into light rapids.
We drove until we saw the sign for a waterfall, which we pulled over to see. It was a pretty waterfall. But, honestly, it is getting harder and harder for waterfalls to impress us after seeing the different waterfalls in DuPont State Forest and our trip to Niagara Falls. Again, it was a beautiful waterfall which accented the hillside nicely. But, we enjoyed the walls of rock and trees much more. Spearfish Canyon is a place that is loved by bicyclists as well. So, watch out for them. After the waterfall, we ventured on for another mile or so and then turned around.
We made our way back to the Interstate and decided to truly head back to home base. On most of our journeys, we take side trips that do not often get written about. However, since we had so many of them at one time, I decided to share about them. And, also, to remind all of our readers that trips are not always about the destinations themselves. The journey there and back can be equally as enjoyable. So, if you are heading somewhere and see something that may be interesting, pull a page from our playbook and take a side trip to see it. Safe Travels.
