The Wall Drugs Medicine Show
This is the Mecca of tourist traps. Wall Drugs has signs posted all over the world, telling prospective customers, and travelers how far away, and in what direction, it may be found. Most of these signs announce the Wall Drug trade mark of "Free Ice Water". | |
Here it is; the tourist trap to end all tourist traps, Wall Drugs. I actually mean this in the nicest possible way. This place is wonderful in a tacky exploitive fashion. There is little that can not be bought, in this interesting place. It is more like a department store, than a drug store, though prescriptions can be filled here. | |
A long shot, down main street, Wall Drugs. From just inside the entrance. The place kind of looks like a mini mall. Well ordered chaos, and a clash of colors and textures. | |
My brother trying to soften the hard veneer of a western girl. With little success. He got nothing but the cold shoulder from this frontier gal. | |
A look towards the back of the place. The walls are full of assorted odds, and ends. In an abbreviated version of the nearby Badlands, Wall drugs is the result of a process of accretion, and addition, since it's opening in the thirties. | |
The Wall Drugs "Back Porch", or at any rate, one of them. | |
A look towards the front entrance, from the inside of the mall. | |
The Wall Drugs "Front Porch" running along the full length of the front of the store. | |
The renowned, and original, wall Drugs, mechanical cowboy band. Often imitated, never equaled. The mechanical figures perform cowboy songs through a loud speaker system, while they go through the motions of playing their instruments. | |
Stereotypical "picture postcard" view of Wall Drugs. A vacation traveler's tradition, for decades. Inside, are several restaurants, an assortment of gift shops, and sundries, film, hardware, clothing shops, a gun and knife shop, books, jewelry, dinosaurs, Indian crafts, a penny arcade, an art gallery, and , oh yes, a drug store. | |
Yeah, Right!
This sign sort of defines the overstated silliness, and touristy attitude of the place (where do the ocean liners park?). |
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A cowboy seems to watch us, from a balcony holding mounted trophies. This is certainly Americana. Note the prevalence of American flags. This was in the early nineties, the clinton years, when patriotism was not exactly at a high water mark. |
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