About Wall Drug’s Giant Dinosaur and Jackalope
Wall Drug began as a small-town pharmacy and eventually accumulated enough attractions to resemble a roadside fever dream with a prescription counter attached. The sprawling complex in Wall includes shops, food, displays, photo opportunities, an enormous jackalope, an animatronic Tyrannosaurus rex, and a giant dinosaur standing near Interstate 90 to make absolutely certain motorists know where to exit.
The business dates to 1931, but its famous roadside identity took off after owners Ted and Dorothy Hustead began advertising free ice water to travelers crossing the hot prairie. Signs multiplied along highways, visitors arrived, and the drugstore expanded into a full tourist complex. The free ice water survived, but it now competes for attention with a remarkable amount of engineered nonsense.
Outside, an approximately eighty-foot dinosaur marks the Wall exit. Inside the attraction, visitors can climb onto a huge jackalope for photographs and encounter a roaring animatronic T. rex. The backyard and surrounding rooms add more displays, souvenirs, historical photographs, and themed spaces. Wall Drug has spent decades proving that there is apparently no upper limit to the number of things that can be attached to a successful roadside pharmacy.
The store remains a functioning business, not a preserved historical set. That makes the spectacle stranger. People still stop for food, pharmacy services, and shopping while giant fictional animals loom around them. Wall Drug is commercial, excessive, deliberately kitschy, and completely committed to the old roadside rule that a bigger animal beside the highway is better advertising.