Pioneer Auto Museum — Attraction in Murdo

My family and I toured the museum yesterday during the open house, so we got in for $1/person. We really can't complain about that price. It was best "bang for the buck" on our entire vacation. Unfortunately after seeing the well kept cars and other memorabilia in the first building, seeing all the other cars and other items in such poor condition in the rest of the museum was disappointing enough we just did a quick scan of the last half of the museum, then left. Now, to be clear, I don't mind seeing dusty unrestored vehicles; not at all. I enjoy seeing things as close to "as they were" back in the day. What really bothered me is seeing all the old vehicles rotting away in damp humid sheds. These vehicles are sitting in gravel and dirt/mud, some with their rims several inches into the soil. These sheds smell dank, musty, and moldy. There should at least be a vapor barrier of some sort between the damp ground and the vehicle. Many of these vehicles are/will be rotting from the ground up. Several of the vehicles were placed on blocks to keep the rubber off the ground, but many that were on blocks had sunk so deep into the ground that the wheels were also sunk in. Also, being a "gun guy" I enjoyed seeing a handful of classic rifles and hand guns. While I can't speak with much authority on classic cars, I can speak on the subject of gun preservation, and what i saw was also incredibly disappointing. These rifles and revolvers were in cases inside another very humid shed, open to the elements, with little air movement. There was one gun case in which the revolvers are set into pillow-like velvet. I know from first-hand experience that any steel firearm in contact with fabric or leather will rust, especially in such a humid environment. To be fair I'm sure the cost of perfectly preserving such a large collection of memorabilia would be expensive and daunting, but I believe the are a few simple budget friendly things that could be done to maximize the life of many of the items in this museum by quite a bit. How...

We just stopped for lunch today at what we thought was a local diner. BTW - The Indian Fry Bread Salad was wonderful! After lunch we perused the gift shop where we were told about an adjacent museum with the Dukes of Hazard Car, over 30 buildings, and 300 cars! We were also told of the fact by a very nice salesperson from our neighboring state of Louisiana about American Pickers recently featuring the museum. Who woulda thunk! We went to the museum door where we were personally and graciously greeted by the owner Dave Geisler. OMG!!!!! We saw every car imaginable! It was totally amazing! We even saw one of Elvis' motorcycles! Bring quarters. You can play all sorts of antique devices. We only had one quarter, so we tried a rinkey-tink piano. The museum went on and on. The cars were only part of it - and this place put the fantastic car museum in Shreveport (next to the casinos) to shame! It even had a 1964 Avanti - a car I coveted in my teenage years. Needless to say, the 1922 motor home, the antique tractors, the old radio shack, well, you get the idea, were unbelievable. Today was my first time ever in South Dakota and I will never forget it! Tomorrow, Wall Drug Store, Badlands, and later Mount Rushmore. Does it...

This place started as a corner gas station in Mitchell, SD in the 30s. The owner had a couple of old cars that people would check out while filling up, so he got the idea to put a building around them and start charging admission. Things kinda snowballed from there, and ~40 buildings later it's still going strong.

It's not the cheapest place you'll ever visit, but I can assure you it's worth the cost of admission. I've been to probably half the auto museums in the country, and this one takes the cake. First of all, it's huge. 300+ cars, not to mention the bicycles, trucks, tractors, motorcycles, and all manner of other antique collectibles. The astonishing thing as a car guy is the number of cars I saw that I'd never seen before - and some I've never even heard of!

Not only that, but much of it is housed in a transplanted "frontier town" that includes a church, fire station, train station, school, gas station, and much more. We spent almost five hours there, and the only reason we left was because the youngest kids were getting tired.

Thank goodness they're a Harvest Host, or we may have never known about it. Speaking of that, their RV parking is extensive,...