TED HUSTEAD
Who gave the world WALL DRUG, dies

The South Dakota Pharmacist Turned His Drugstore into A Global Destination

ANYBODY who watched Ted Hustead roll into Wall, South Dakota, on a cattle truck in December, 1931, his wife and 4-year-old son at his side, the family's entire stock of meager possessions piled in the back, would have needed quite a crystal ball to predict the future.

That crystal ball would have shown that by the time Hustead died two-thirds of a century later, the governor of South Dakota would be moved to open his annual state-of-the-state address with a tribute to the man who became a beloved South Dakota legend by turning a small-town pharmacy named Wall Drug into the world's most popular drugstore.
A sprawling tourist attraction of international renown, the store takes in more than million a year and draws about 2 million annual visitors to a remote town whose population has never risen to more than 800.

Then again, hot, dusty and remote as Wall was and is, 50 miles east of Rapid City on the edge of the notorious Badlands, not even Hustead could have predicted how far a pharmacist could go -- or how far people would travel to come to him -- with the offer of a free drink of ice water and a ubiquitous, world-famous network of clever roadside signs and bumper stickers.

Or as Gov. William J. Janklow put it on Wednesday, a day after Hustead died at 96 in a hospital in Philip, S.D., 30 miles from Wall: "He's a guy that figured out that free ice water could turn you into a phenomenal success in the middle of a semi-arid desert way out in the middle of someplace."

Certainly, in 1931 it would have been hard to predict that anyone who settled in Wall would make much of a mark, let alone a 28-year-old pharmacist who had used the entire ,000 he inherited from his father to buy the town's lone drugstore.

A doctor's son from Phillips, Nebraska, Hustead had earned a pharmacist's degree from the University of Nebraska and worked as a farm laborer and later at a grain elevator in Sioux Falls before heeding his mother's advice to seek independence.

Settling in the store's back room, the Husteads agreed to stick it out for five years, but after taking in only the first month, it began to seem that Wall Drug had been a dead end.

Then, with only six months to go on the five-year limit and just after the family had moved to a house near the highway, Mrs. Hustead had a brainstorm.

She got to thinking, she said, that if they put up a little sign out on the highway offering free ice water to tourists on their way to Mount Rushmore maybe some of them would turn off to quench their thirst and perhaps even buy something.

Inspired by the proliferating Burma Shave ditties of the day, she even composed a little jingle: "Get a soda/Get root beer/Turn next corner/Just as near/To Highway 16 and 14/Free Ice Water/Wall Drug."

Hustead needed no further prodding. By the time he got back from putting up the sign the next day, cars already had started turning off and making the block and a half to Wall Drug on Main Street.

They haven't stopped. Fired by the initial success, Hustead began expanding the store, adding wares and attractions while installing signs along every highway in South Dakota and neighboring states, all proclaiming just how much farther a motorist had to go to reach the promised land of Wall Drug.

In time, Hustead was spending ,000 a year on billboard advertising, including Wall Drug signs on London buses and in every train station in Kenya.

Today, the little store has been expanded into a 75,000-square-foot colossus of Western kitsch with an enclosed mall, dozens of shops selling everything from T-shirts to expensive boots, a summertime staff of 250 and an array of corny free attractions like a cowboy orchestra that plays every 15 minutes.

Long after he turned over active management to his son, Bill, whose recent illness has forced him to hand the reins to his sons, Rick and Ted, the proprietor was a constant, proud presence at Wall Drug.

Hustead, whose wife died in 1994, is also survived by another son; two daughters; and 17 grandchildren and 22 great-grandchildren.

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