Murdo, South Dakota: The Highway Crossroads

The little city of Murdo owes its existence to a Scottish cattle baron. In about nineteen oh seven, a railroad town was platted here and named for Murdo MacKenzie, who had driven enormous Texas herds through this stretch of the Missouri River country two years earlier. Boosters called it the Magic City.

Today Murdo sits where Interstate Ninety crosses US Highway Eighty-Three, and the intersection has kept it alive. The Pioneer Auto Show, opened in nineteen fifty-four by a Phillips Sixty-Six operator who set out vintage cars to lure travelers in for gas, grew into a sprawling collection of more than two hundred seventy-five classic automobiles, motorcycles, and tractors spread across ninety buildings. Not bad for a town of about four hundred souls.