East Meets West at Al’s Oasis “East is east, and west is west, and never the twain shall meet,” wrote Rudyard Kipling in 1889. Kipling hadn’t been to Al’s.

~ by: John Egan ~

If South Dakota has a blue belt across it’s middle. Al’s Oasis in Oacoma is the buckle. It marks the middle of the state and the middle of the Missouri River as it winds across the state’s midsection from the North Dakota Border to Sioux City. Even the town’s name comes from the Sioux word Okoma, a place between.

For those traveling Interstate 90 between Sioux Falls and the Black hills, the buckle loosens up at mealtime. Vacationers as well as regulars have been welcomed to a respite from the road by affable Alfred Mueller at his “Oasis” on the west bank of the Missouri for 47 years. Now, two sons and a daughter run the place. But it is Al who has seen visitors come and go almost forever; he knows more of them by name than seems possible.

On Al’s bluff just west of Chamberlain, travelers find a variety of amenities - motel rooms, a gas station, a gift shop, a grocery store, a campground and the restaurant. Al’s late wife, Veda, her smile warm and her eyes twinkling like night stars over Lyman County, told me once how this South Dakota institution come to be

“It was at noon on a summer day and I was on vacation from my teaching job at Oacoma. I used to go to the filling station we had on old Highway 16 through Oacoma to make sure that Al got a decent noon meal, since he was always there from morning to night.”

“I had a couple of ground-beef patties on the hot plate in back and was about to bring the hamburgers to Al when I heard a voice. It was a man at the cash register paying for his gas. He must have smelled the frying meat because I heard him ask Al, “do you serve sandwiches here?” Never one to think twice about things like that, Al said “yes”.

And he came back and wrapped a napkin around the burgers and sold them. Things haven’t been the same since.”

Thus put, it is true that there are those who combine vision with diligence and make things happen in amazing ways. Such a man was Al’s father. Albert Mueller came to America from Germany in 1906. A lawyer by profession, he began to farm near White River in Lyman County in 1912. In 1919, the year Al was born, he and his wife, Dena, bought a grocery business in Oacoma, which was then the county seat. Al grew up in the store watching his father “weather the storm of the thirties.”

“Dad never lost a nickel to a Lyman County farmer during those though times,” Al said, “even though some left the region to go west to find work, they paid what they owed. Ten or Twenty bucks at a time. Dad even helped the railroad bums who traveled through. And what drove the Oacoma Market is still alive.” Al says. “The spirit of those who came through the dust storms of the thirties is alive in the achievers of today’s South Dakota. A different breed; good substantial people.”

The younger Al studied two years at the University of South Dakota. Then, like most young men of his age, he served in the army from 1942 to 1945. After the war, he worked in the mining business for a Chicago firm before joining his dad in running the store. Then he met and married Veda, a rancher’s daughter from Hoven who was teaching home economics at Chamberlain.

In 1953 the waters of Lake Francis Case rose toward Oacoma, where the Corps of Engineers had condemned and removed houses and businesses south of Highway 16. The Oacoma Market was on the safe side of the highway, but soon the highway itself moved up the hill, and Al and Veda followed, building on the north side of the new highway. Al leased railroad property, had it leveled to suit his purpose, then bought the land.

“I saw the potential in the tourism business, so we opened a 12-stool lunch counter alongside the filling station and small grocery store we were running.” Al said. Veda baked her famous apple pies, and coffee was a nickel - which it still is today. The business took off from there. In the late 1960’s, highway 16 would itself be replaced as a thoroughfare by Interstate 90, which runs parallel just to the south.

“Things happened fast,” Al said. “Bridges across the Missouri had united the state east and west. Then Interstate 90 came past, so we used road signs to tell people where we were. Not only did lots of car travelers stop, so did big trucks. We continually increased our parking capacity,” Al said. “And we built onto the building nine times.” In the 1960’s the business became Al’s Oasis.

The Oasis has now grown to 150 employees, and on an average day, the restaurant serves almost a thousand orders, including 135 slices of pie. “The employees first learn to treat people right,” Al said. “Word of mouth is the best - or worst - advertising you can have. I can’t tell you how many wonderful young men and women have worked for us during the years, then kept in touch as they advanced successfully in life.”

Al and Veda’s son, Steve, is now general manager. Another son, Mark, runs the kitchen, and their daughter, Dee, manages the restaurant.

Besides its role for generations of travelers as the Oasis by the river, Al’s has been a home away from home for lots of local people, including Marie Woster, from across the river at Chamberlain. She is the mother of three South Dakota writers and journalists, Jim, Terry and Kevin Woster. The day I met Marie at Al’s, we talked about my book and her sons’ book, which were for sale side by side at Al’s. She told me things about the boys” that I had not heard before, hilarious things. “ It would make a better book than the one that they did,” she said with a wink. “But I wouldn’t want to embarrass them.”

“Let’s talk again sometime,” she said as we parted. “You can usually find me here.” Unfortunately, Marie had a heart attack shortly thereafter and moved to Sioux Falls. But she is not forgotten at the Oasis. “We miss her,” Al said.

She wasn’t kidding about how important Al’s was to her, according to her daughter-in-law, Penny Woster. “She spent time there with four or five groups of friends. Literally, we knew if we wanted to reach her, we could call Al’s. Almost any time from breakfast ”

Dave Strain is another regular at Al’s, “since I was a kid,” he said. “Al and my dad, Gene, were good friends. My dad knew Albert, too. I’d never fail to stop there when I took my Rapid City Central basketball teams back and forth across the state.”

In recent years, Strain has busied himself with western South Dakota history and with book publishing and distribution. “I’m in Al’s alot,” he said. “I have lots of friends who are regulars. Al marketed the first book I published, back in 1982, Buffalo Gap - A French Ranch in Dakota, 1887.”

Don Carlson, a retired real-estate executive from Rapid City, is typical of thousands who have crisscrossed the state for years. Carlson, 71, grew up in Philip; his trips across the state began in the late 1940’s, when he attended Augustana College. “A trip across South Dakota has rarely been taken without a stop to see our friend Al at the Oasis,” Carlson said. “The trip wouldn’t seem right without that break.”

Everyone who visits the Oasis regularly probably has a moment to remember. Mine is that it was the first time I saw my book for sale on a shelf. Al grabbed me when he saw me and marched me to the spot. Jim Woster’s memory goes back to the old grocery store in Oacoma where he lived on the family farm near Reliance. “That store is where I had my first wonderful taste of pickled pimento,” he said.

It is at Al’s Oasis where an eastern farmer may share a booth with a western rancher. It is where the black loafers of Sioux Falls bankers go under a lunch table with the cowboy boots of western bankers.

Indeed, if there is a state melting pot, it is in the Oasis kitchen.

*About the Author - John Egan is former sports editor and columnist at the Sioux Falls “Argus Leader.” He is the author of “Drop Him Till He Dies,” the sad, true story of his maligned great-grandfather.