South Dakota

The thing that amazes me is how many books we sell, how many people are elated to find a bookstore out here on the prairie,” said Karen Upchurch, book buyer for Wall Drug's 800-square-foot bookstore. The bookstore is part of Wall Drug's kitschy 70,000-square-foot shopping mall on Route 90, adjacent to the Badlands National Park in southwestern South Dakota since the 1930s. Although Upchurch declines to disclose sales figures, she said, “The amount of books we sell would surprise most people.

“People are fascinated by the West, the way it really was,” Upchurch said, describing the 1,600 titles in the bookstore as primarily nonfiction, the entire inventory relating to the region's history or culture. Bestsellers include the Wall Drug Cookbook (naturally), Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee and Laura Ingalls Wilder's Little House on the Prairie novels.

Upchurch describes her patrons as a mix of tourists and locals. “But, then, to me, a local is anyone living west of the Missouri River,” she added, a fact of life in a rural state with only 771,000 residents spread out over 77,000 square miles, the Missouri dividing the region into two distinct social, economic and geographic halves.

Like most of the other Great Plains states, South Dakota's economy is dominated by agriculture. But South Dakotans have worked hard to diversify their state's economy, trying to attract and retain residents and jobs. As a result, not only has Sioux Falls, South Dakota's largest city, become a major financial services center, but the Coyote State has become a popular tourist destination, much of it concentrated in the Black Hills area, between Rapid City and the Wyoming state line. Each summer, hordes of people descend upon such attractions as Mt. Rushmore, Deadwood, Sturgis and, of course, Wall Drug.

Even though South Dakota's population has increased almost 10% since 1990, the chains don't maintain much of a presence. South Dakota boasts only five chain bookstores, two of them Waldenbooks and one a B. Dalton. The only Borders store is located in Rapid City, and one Barnes & Noble store is located at the opposite end of the state in Sioux Falls.

There aren't many independents, either: seven at last count, as two CBA stores closed earlier this year. Two CBA stores and two ABA stores are east of the Missouri River, and one CBA store and two ABA stores are west, including Wall Drug. And, like Wall Drug's bookstore, the ABA booksellers are thriving.

Prairie Pages opened its doors for business one year ago in Pierre, the state capital. Co-owners Kathy Villa and Peggy Stout filled 1,000 special orders by the 2006 holiday season, and another 1,000 special orders since.

Grossing $270,000 in revenue this past year, the two co-owners say they've exceeded their sales expectations, attributing this to their patrons being well-educated, well-informed and holding down good jobs: 82% of the city's 14,000 residents have college degrees or higher; many of them are employees of either the state government or the local hospital.

“There aren't that many bookstores around, so when you have one, people tend to support it,” said Peggy Bieber, co-owner for 17 years of Aberdeen's Little Professor. “We're pulling in traffic from a huge area. We're the only bookstore for 100 miles.”

While admitting that a nearby Wal-Mart and a Target store both present some competition, Bieber asserts that the Internet poses a negligible threat to her store and to those of her colleagues.

“[South Dakotans] may browse Amazon.com, but they don't like to purchase online,” Bieber noted. “They don't like to give their credit card numbers online.

“They hang on to their money because they don't want to get ripped off.” She added, “This is a conservative state, with conservative values.”