One man turned vinegar into a reason to visit South Dakota

In 1999, Lawrence Diggs decided his small town needed a museum. Not about local history or prairie wildlife — about vinegar. Twenty-five years later, the International Vinegar Museum in Roslyn, South Dakota, is still the only one of its kind in the world, housed in a 1930s auditorium that's now on the National Register of Historic Places.

Diggs, who earned the nickname "The Vinegar Man" through sheer conviction, built the museum as a deliberate act of economic hope. Roslyn is tiny — the kind of place where tourism doesn't happen by accident. But Diggs understood something: people are drawn to specificity, to someone's genuine obsession. A vinegar museum sounds absurd until you walk in and realize it's actually a gateway to fermentation science, global food culture, and the kind of community pride that can't be manufactured.

The museum works because it takes its subject seriously without taking itself too seriously. Visitors taste vinegars sourced from around the world, learn the chemistry of how vinegar forms, and discover its practical uses beyond cooking — everything from cleaning to medicine to textile production. The oddest exhibits might be the most memorable: paper and ceramics made entirely from vinegar, proof that Diggs's curiosity has no natural boundaries.

What started as one person's passion has become a genuine gathering point. Every June, Roslyn hosts the annual Vinegar Festival on the third Saturday, complete with a parade, cooking demonstrations, tastings, and the crowning of the Vinegar Queen and Royal Quart. It's the kind of event that sounds quirky in description but feels genuinely celebratory when you're there — a small town saying: we're still here, we're still creative, and we're inviting you in.

The museum operates seasonally from June through Labor Day, open Thursdays through Saturdays. It's a reminder that tourism doesn't require a major attraction or a famous landmark. Sometimes it just requires someone stubborn enough to believe that their obsession is worth sharing, and a community willing to lean into it.