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Historic place

Full Throttle Saloon (original)

12997 SD Highway 34, Sturgis, SD

Billed as the world's largest biker bar and immortalized on truTV, the 27-acre Full Throttle Saloon burned to the ground in about three hours in September 2015.

📅 1999–2015🏛️ BarDemolishedBuilt 1999
Open on the mapSlide back to 1999

The story

Michael Ballard bought 27 acres on Highway 34 in 1999 and built the Full Throttle into a sprawling "world's largest blue-collar biker bar" — multiple stages, a burn-out pit, a tattoo parlor, zip lines, a wrestling ring, and hundreds of rental cabins, drawing an estimated 20,000 guests a night during rally week. From 2009 to 2015 it starred in truTV's six-season reality series. In the early hours of September 8, 2015, a pinched cord to a keg fridge overheated, ignited a cardboard box, and within roughly three hours the whole saloon had burned down. Ballard rebuilt about five miles away near Vale in 2016.

Everything that was here

Did you know?

At its peak it could draw an estimated 20,000 guests in a single night.
The complex included a wrestling ring, zip lines, and a tattoo parlor.
The rebuilt saloon reopened five miles away on Highway 79 rather than at this original site.

Nearby history

Fort Meade

Sheridan Street, Fort Meade · 1.6 km away
Soldiers at this frontier cavalry post started standing for "The Star-Spangled Banner" in 1892 — nearly 40 years before

Broken Spoke Saloon

905 Lazelle St · 4.3 km away
Dave Iversen built the Broken Spoke on the site of an old lumberyard in 1988, deliberately just off Main Street with a c

Sturgis Motorcycle Museum & Hall of Fame

999 Main St · 4.5 km away
The rally's official museum is housed in Sturgis's former U.S. Post Office, which served the town's mail for more than 6

Hoel's Indian Motorcycle Shop

Junction Avenue · 4.5 km away
Nine riders raced for a $500 purse behind a small-town Indian Motorcycle shop in 1938 — and accidentally founded the lar

Sturgis Commercial Block

1000 Main St · 4.5 km away
Nine cut-stone storefronts raised in 1888-1900 are the last standing witnesses to Sturgis's origins as a lawless boomtow

The Knuckle Saloon & Brewing Co.

931 1st St · 4.7 km away
The Knuckle Saloon occupies an entire downtown block that its own history says once belonged to Col. Samuel D. Sturgis —

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Sourceshttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Full_Throttle_Saloon