The Wall Drug Papers contain material concerning the history and operation of Wall Drug. The Papers are divided into five series: Printed Material, Correspondence, Legal Documents, Ephemera, and Miscellaneous. For preservations purposes all materials except the Ephemera were photocopied.
The Printed Material is divided into fifteen sub-series: Articles Concerning Wall Drug, Articles with Mention of Wall Drug, Articles from Foreign Periodicals Concerning Wall Drug, Articles by Norman Vincent Peale, Articles Concerning Wall Drug Signs in the United States, Articles Concerning Wall Drug Signs outside the United States, Articles Concerning the Highway Beautification Act of 1965 with Mention of Wall Drug, Articles Concerning the Highway Beautification Act of 1965, Articles Concerning Student Employees at Wall Drug, Articles Concerning the Vanishing Trails Tour, Articles Concerning the Wall Drug Dinosaur, Cartoons about Wall Drug, Articles Concerning the Hustead Family, Articles Concerning the Black Hills-Badlands, and Articles on Dana Jennings. Many articles could easily fit into more than one of these sub-series.
The Correspondence series is divided into three sub-series: Incoming, Outgoing, and Other. The Incoming sub-series contains primarily letters in response to an article written by Fay Gemmell, who wrote a critical article about Wall Drug (“Against the Wall in South Dakota,” 1976). The Outgoing sub-series includes a letter from Ted Hustead to the publication who printed the critical article. The Other sub-series includes correspondence from a Hustead family vacation in Europe in Summer 1958.
The Legal Documents contain proceedings from the Congressional Record. The proceedings include remarks from George McGovern and James Abdnor promoting Wall Drug.
The Ephemera material includes bumper stickers from Wall Drug.
The Miscellaneous material contains teaching notes from University of South Dakota professors James D. Taylor, Robert L. Johnson and Gene B. Iverson. The notes focus on Wall Drug “as a policy case with emphasis on marketing, particularly promotion, and finance, with interesting aspects of management and personnel management.”