50 States of Wonder
7 Inexplicably Huge Animals in South Dakota

Among roadside attractions, Wall Drug is an icon: It's the granddaddy of tourist traps. The stop is impossible to miss, thanks to countless billboards along the highway, advertising its ice water, which it has given away since the 1930s. Over the years, the store has turned into an attraction in its own right, with all sorts of bizarre things, from taxidermied jackalopes to giant fiberglass dinosaurs. They still give out ice water, too—some 20,000 cups of it on a busy day. (Read more.)

This sculpture gallery is home to the mind-boggling work of the artist John Lopez, who collects materials from local farmers and ranchers. Most of the artwork is made from a blend of scrap metal, found objects, and little bronze figurines welded together to take the flowing, sinuous shapes of animals. They come in large and small sizes, and of particular interest are the sculpture of an octopus made from an old motorcycle gas tank and a steampunk owl made of saw blades. (Read more.)

Outside the spectacular Badlands National Park, there is a prairie dog of a disturbing size. It stands at the Badlands Ranch Store gift shop—12 towering feet of concrete—surrounded by an actual colony of real, smaller, furrier versions. It's held court there for over 50 years, and while it's showing some age, it's not showing any signs of going anywhere. (Read more.)

Cruising along I-90, there's a lot of flat ranch land, so a motorist might be surprised to come upon a massive, 60-foot bull’s head, rising out of the ground like some pagan effigy guarded by a pair of skeletal minotaurs. That's just the beginning of Porter Sculpture Park, a collection of more than 50 welded metal sculptures by artist and farmer Wayne Porter. The sculptures are comprised of old scrap metal and disused agricultural and railroad equipment, often painted in bright, cheery colors. But look a little closer and things can get dark: a jack-in-the-box crying blood, an oversized frog mid-dissection, a handful of roaring dragons. (Read more.)

Nothing to see here, just a skeletal man walking his skeleton dinosaur in the middle of the high prairie. It's hard not to crack a smile, but make sure you keep your eyes on the road. The pair appear to be headed to another nearby attraction made by the same family. That one is the Original 1880 Town, packed with old buildings, artifacts, relics, and photographs from South Dakota’s pioneer days. There, visitors can rent period costumes and stroll around town, waiting for the skeleton dinosaur to arrive. (Read more.)

Dedicated in 1936, Dinosaur Park was one of the earlier thunder lizard–themed tourist attractions, with large dinosaur models depicting the creatures as they were thought to appear before decades of paleontology revised their appearance. The result is five large concrete-and-iron models, painted bright green, that are almost cartoonish in appearance. They now represent the progress science has made and sit in a public park, where they're a favorite among kids, who are free to climb all over them. (Read more.)

Initially discovered by a construction worker and his son while they were looking to build on the land, the Mammoth Site in Hot Springs yielded one of the largest deposits of prehistoric mammoth remains in the world.

The site holds remains from at least 60 separate Columbian mammoths and three wooly mammoths, and those remains help paleontologists learn about mammoth behavior. A museum and research center has been built around the dig, and many bones have been left in situ for visitors to see them just as they were found. (Read more.)