I Stopped at Wall Drug… and Found a Nuclear Missile

Added: 2026-05-30

[00:00:09]Well, good morning from Mitchell, South Dakota. This is day seven of me driving across the country from Florida to Alaska, and I'm currently standing in front of the Corn Palace. I have heard about this thing for years, and I've never seen it in person. And funny enough, I didn't even know I was going to be here this morning. I actually am I'm actually only in this small town because uh on I Overlander apparently there's showers right down the street I can get and the road that take me to the showers led me right by the corn palace and when I was driving by it I was like oh I got to see this thing in person.

[00:00:41][laughter] So I think it has free admission. So let's go in there and check it out.

[00:00:49]All of that is made of corn.

[00:00:53]The entrance right here is all corn.

[00:00:57]That is all corn. [laughter] Yep. All corn.

[00:01:22]Okay. I don't really know what to expect of this place right now. It's not much of anything.

[00:01:28]I guess we go upstairs.

[00:01:32]Oh, [laughter] it's like a stadium.

[00:01:40]Yeah. Well, right now it looks like it's more of a gift shop in there, but Yeah.

[00:01:45]Like see all the the chairs. [laughter] Oh, and of course I'm stepping on popcorn everywhere.

[00:01:55]Uh I guess let's walk through the the palace. [laughter] [laughter] Yeah, it's just a gift shop. [laughter] Probably won't stay stay here too long.

[00:02:19]I am actually in a rush.

[00:02:25]These things are impressive though.

[00:02:26]They're they are all corn.

[00:02:41]All right. Well, [laughter] it's not at all what I thought it was.

[00:02:45]Um, I'm kind of in a rush, too. I I only got to get a shower. I got to drive about 3 hours down the road. I'm headed to uh well, I'm headed to a couple places today. I'm headed to Wall Wall Drug. In fact, Wall, South Dakota is a very small town, but it's famous for having a very famous drugstore. Wall Drug. And if you never if you don't know anything about Wall Drug, I'm just going to wait till I get there to show you.

[00:03:10]It's It's wild. I've been before. I'm also going to see an underground missile today and I'm going make it to the Badlands. So, I got a lot of driving and a lot of touristing to do. So, first I got to get a shower. Oh boy, I definitely went through the Midwest.

[00:03:27]Look at all the bugs in the car.

[00:03:30]Yeah, somebody's been driving through Iowa. [laughter] Well, I found the showers. They're actually in there.

[00:03:38]And you got a pretty nice view.

[00:03:42]All right, let's go in here.

[00:03:49]Yeah, I already went in here once and checked it out.

[00:03:53]See if they work and they do.

[00:03:58]Nothing glamorous, but free hot shower will do. [gasps] You want to see something kind of insane? So, the very first thing the very first thing I did when I got up this morning because I slept at a truck stop is I got up. I refilled the car and I cleaned off the windshield because there was lots and lots and lots of bug debris all over my windshield. Now, I've only been driving for about an hour and a half this morning. Now, look at my windshield. I don't know if it'll come out as bad as it really is on camera, but oh my god, my windshield is just covered in bug debris.

[00:04:33]It's pretty bad. Look, I even have a wasp trying to trying to eat some of his brothers there. His dead brothers.

[00:04:42]So, you may not know this, but at one time there were over a thousand missiles buried beneath the ground all over the Northwest and Midwest of the United States. All built to protect us during the [music] Cold War. This is actually one of those missiles. This is known as a Minuteman missile and it was built to protect us during the Cold War from the Soviet Union. The idea is if they ever actually fire upon us, we needed a [music] fast way to retaliate. So, this was buried out here in the middle of nowhere because the idea was that if the Soviet Union was going to attack us, they never would [music] have sent missiles to the middle of nowhere.

[00:05:17]They're certainly going to attack places like New York and Washington [music] and California and places with big population stuff first. So, they needed a way to [music] protect the United States. So they buried these missiles, these Minute Man missiles, which by the way get their name from the Minute Man militia from the Revolutionary War.

[00:05:33][music] These guys were militia. They were ready to go at a minute on a minute's notice. That's why [music] they're called Minute Man, and that's hence the name Minute Man missile. This was built to be deployed in within a minute. And within 30 minutes from here in South Dakota, just outside of Badlands National Park, this missile would fly over the North Pole and hit [music] Russia in just 30 minutes. Now, when the Cold War ended, the US actually had to decommission uh 80% of its missiles. And so, this one's now obviously decommissioned. Uh but we still have about 400 Minute Man missiles laying around the country that we still can use and protect ourselves if we ever need to. But like I said, at the height of the Cold War, there was about a thousand of them. And nowadays, there's only about 400. This is just one of those things in history that is just absolutely astonishing to me. I can't get enough of it. My mind is blown by the sheer concept of the whole thing. I get it in its nature. You have to protect your country. You have to protect your your people and everything, but this literally could have started World War II at any given notice. And Russia had just as many, too. They had missiles all over their countryside as well, ready to attack us, should they [music] ever think that we were going to attack them. This stuff is just so wild.

[00:06:56]There is a missile in there.

[00:07:02]It's so wild. [music] I'm trying not to get any glare. It's really hard, but And it's just right there out in the middle of nowhere.

[00:07:18]So crazy.

[00:07:34]So originally this would not be a glass dome. This was only built in, I think they said 2000, maybe 2001, somewhere around there, just so people could peer down and look at the the missile. This actually would have had a big slab of like concrete over it that would have like flipped open for the missile to come out.

[00:07:51]As much as I sit here and stare at that, I still just can't believe that it exists.

[00:08:04]If you go to the visitor center about the Minutemen missiles, which is just down the street about 10 miles or so, uh I think you're going to find one of the more interesting stories to the whole thing. [music] And that is that I think somewhere in the 80s, I'm doing this all off of memory because I've been to a visitor center before, but I'm not going back cuz I just don't really have the time right now. So, I'm doing this off memory, but I I think sometime in the 80s, there was a moment when um somewhere in Russia, a radar had picked up what they thought was an incoming missile from the United States [music] that we fired to Russia. Russia was picking up an incoming missile. Now, the weird part about this [music] was that they only picked up one missile. They didn't pick up like a hundred missiles that we were firing at them. They picked [music] up one missile. And the person that was watching the radar screen saw this, alerted his higher commander [music] and his told his higher commander, "Look, the US is attacking us. What do we do?" And the higher commander looked at it and he saw one missile coming in. He said, "Why would they why would the United States attack us with just one missile? If they're going to attack us, they're going to attack us with, you know, hundreds at a time or so. [music] Definitely not more than one." And so he honestly just chocked it up to a glitch [music] in the system. Um, what he was supposed to do, if I'm doing this all off top of my head again, memory, [music] is that he was supposed to let his higherup know what to do next, which they most certainly probably would have said, "Hey, if the [music] United States, if you're showing a mil missile on the screen and the United States is attacking us, fire back. Let's start firing missiles at them." Which would have [music] just started World War II right there because we would have saw a bunch of incoming missiles coming at us and we would have fired back. Now, luckily the whole thing was [music] just a glitch in the system.

[00:09:37]their radar system um had picked up what they thought was an incoming missile and wasn't. [music] And this guy identified it as just that. And he did nothing about it. [music] He just said, "I think that's a glitch in system. Let's not do anything." Now, he was let go of his [music] position and uh dishonorably discharged over in Russia because he did not follow uh his direct orders, which is to let the higher-ups know. But this one man, this one person [music] actually saved the entire world from World War II. Because again, if he would alerted his higher-ups, his higher-ups would have said, "If there's a missile coming, [music] let's fire all of our nukes right now at the United States."

[00:10:13]So, this one person going off a sheer hunch, not even the facts he saw on the screen, just a sheer hunch that maybe that's not true. Maybe the US is not attacking us right now, literally just saved the entire world from World War II destruction. I think that's one of the more fascinating stories that I've ever heard about any of this. And there it [music] is. Right beyond that fence line is an ICBM and there is Highway 90. And trust me, from that road, you would never know that from looking over here, there's an intercontinental ballistic missile hidden at plain sight.

[00:10:49]Well, of course, [music] the same area that has hidden missiles is also the area that has one of the craziest drugstores you've ever come across. This is Wall Drug. And even though I've [music] been here before, I've been seeing signs for this thing since Iowa, since I've been driving here. This thing is maybe world famous arguably. It is a drugstore that has now been turned into a Disneyland of art of drugstores.

[00:11:11]There's of course a drugstore inside.

[00:11:13]There's multiple souvenir stores inside.

[00:11:14]There's a wedding chapel inside. There is a dinosaur inside. There is a Mount Rushmore inside. Free ice water. I'll explain that more in the minute. There's a restaurant. There's everything in here. It's so crazy in here. I don't even remember half the things I saw last time I was here. So, let's go in there and check it out again. Of course, there is the drugstore part of it, but we're going to see so much more here in a second.

[00:11:46]>> Oh man, look at the line for the restaurant. Oh my god.

[00:11:52][music] >> [music] [music] [music] >> Mine already. [music] Heat. Heat.

[00:12:25][music] [music] [music] >> [music] [music] >> Okay, so the deal with the free water in this place is [music] that the people who started this business uh were looking for a way to get more business from Highway 90. So they decided, you know what? People driving along this this route don't have a lot of places to get fresh water. So maybe we should start putting out signs to say we advertise free water. Stop by and get some free water. And that's what they did. And people started coming in and saying, "Hey, you got some fresh water?"

[00:13:20]And oh, you know what? Maybe I uh will get a soda and maybe I will get some stuff that I need here at the jugstore.

[00:13:26]And then they open up a restaurant. Then they're like, "Hey, maybe I'll get some food." And and then it just like started expanding, expanding, expanding. So that's the deal with the free ice water.

[00:13:33]So if you always see advertisements that say wall drug free ice water, that was their lure to get people off of Highway 90 to come stop and visit Wall and hopefully also get even more business as they were here shopping for other things. See, told you there's a dinosaur. You'll see it.

[00:14:11]I mean, this place has just literally everything. I forget how expensive it was. It's kind of like a mini strip mall inside of a Walmart. [laughter] Every drugstore should have some guns.

[00:14:24]All right. Well, definitely definitely definitely one of the wildest drugstores I've ever been to. And definitely something to come and see like always something to actually experience rather than just see it on video. So if you're ever in the South Dakota area, especially if you're going to the Badlands, which is right up the street, like it'd be silly not to come here. If you're going to Rushmore or anything like that, stop by. It's definitely something to see. Okay, I am starving.

[00:14:46]I'm going to make some lunch and then there's actually a library right across the street here. As fact, it's only like not even 100 yards from here. Uh I'm going to post up in there and do some work cuz it's pretty hot out out here.

[00:14:57]So, I'm gonna get in there, try to get a video out for you guys, and then go to the Badlands. And I think I'm gonna spend like two days in the Badlands, explore, but also just camp out.

[00:15:12]This is where I'm going to be staying tonight. Right over the Badlands.

[00:15:18]At least we're going to try to find a spot. This place is pretty busy.

[00:15:25]I've been here before. or that's how I knew about it.

[00:15:36]And this car down here has a spot. Look at that little view.

[00:15:42]That's pretty cool.

[00:15:45]People down here flying a kite, throwing a baseball around.

[00:15:51]It's just like a family picnic over here.

[00:15:55]>> [laughter] >> All right. Well, I got me a spot for the night. This place is pretty busy. You can see there's people all over there.

[00:16:02]But this is all free camping. This is all dispersed camping. There's somebody way up there on that ridge. I wanted to try to get down a little low cuz it's super windy out. So, I thought maybe the wind be blocked a little bit by these these hills, but it's really not. But check this out. Going to wake up in the morning, catch a sunrise right over the Badlands.

[00:16:22]Pretty cool.

[00:16:34]Yeah, I stayed here about 3 years ago when I had my teardrop trailer. Uh it's the only other time I've been to the Badlands and I always remember this being just such an epic camp spot because you're literally on the boundaries of the park. Technically, this is BLM. This is natural uh this is National Grassland. Uh, Buffalo Gap Grassland, something like that. Um, but you saw how many campers around here.

[00:16:55]It's just absolutely beautiful spot.

[00:17:08]Oh yeah, that hits the spot. [laughter] All right, I think I'm going to go ahead and end the video here. I'm definitely going to explore Badlands National Park and I want to show you Badlands National Park, but I'm think I'm going have to do that in a separate video because I've already started editing this video and all the stuff I got from Wall Jug and the missile silo and stuff this morning.

[00:17:37]It's going to be too long of a video if I also do add the Badlands into it. So, I'll make that a separate video. But, I think I'm going to post up here for about 2 days, get some work done, explore the park again. I've been here before, but it's been three years. And I definitely want to check out some of the more popular spots again. There's a really, really cool astronomy program that the park system puts on every single night uh that hopefully it's not too windy that they can they'll still do it. I don't know why the wind would really affect it, but it's dark sky territory out here. So, they show you all these stars and constellations. It's a really cool thing. So, definitely want to check that out, but I will have to do that in a separate video for you cuz like I said, it's just too long. Oh my gosh, there's bison over there. I just I think that's bison way over there.

[00:18:20]That's the cool thing about this park is there's bison, there's pong horn. I actually saw a ponghorn when I was coming in. He was just too far off uh in off in the distance to get him on camera. Well, pong horn, prairie dogs, bison. There's so much cool stuff. So, [snorts] I'll do all that in a separate video. Uh but until then, thank you for escaping normal life with me.