How Many Wall Drug Signs Are There From Sioux Falls to Wall?
What's a favorite tourist spot everyone tells you to go visit when you're traveling west? You're probably going to say Wall Drug in Wall, South Dakota. That was easy, right? But here's a question that might be a little tougher to answer: just how many Wall Drug signs are there from Sioux Falls to Wall?
As you are driving on I-90 West, it's a guarantee that you will see numerous signs for Wall Drug. Since I recently ventured out that way, I could not help but wonder how many billboard signs were advertisements for Wall Drug. So, while I was driving with my family, we counted all the Wall Drug signs that we could see.
I know there appears to be a lot of Wall Drug signs. Some would think even hundreds. However, the answer might surprise you.
Before we hit the road, I decided to research how many Wall Drug billboards actually exist in South Dakota just so I have a rough estimate about how many we should actually find. The answers are pretty mixed. One Chicago Tribune from 1989 indicated there are about 250 signs in South Dakota, 30 in Minnesota, and 20 in Wyoming. It's obvious that a lot has changed since 1989, but it was still tough to uncover any other statistics about this iconic advertising strategy. The only other number I came across was from a blog post claiming there are about 333 Wall Drug billboard signs.
If I'm doing my math right, then the mean (AKA the middle) of 250 and 333 is about 291. So really none of this information was very helpful in my quest. The best bet was to personally keep track of all the signs we saw.
The grand total of Wall Drug billboard signs from Sioux Falls to Wall is...
60.
I couldn't believe that we didn't even get to 100! We might have missed a few signs here and there, but that was the number we all counted. I was so surprised...I thought for sure we would have tallied more.
If you ever decide to count the infamous Wall Drug signs, please share your results with me. It would be neat to see if our calculations match!