Little Town on The Prairie

I'm sure most of you are familiar with the TV series Little House on The Prairie. This morning we went in search of the Ingalls homestead in De Smet, SD. Yes, they did homestead there and actually lived there from 1879 until their death. Mary left after the death of her parents and Laura, Almanzo and their daughter Rose, left the area in 1894.

It seems that the Ingalls family did quite a bit of moving beginning in Pepin, Wisconsin, to Independence, Kansas, Walnut Grove, Minnesota (the one the TV series picked up), Burr Oak, Iowa and finally De Smet, South Dakota.

Although the buildings are re-production they were built on the very same land that "Pa" Ingalls laid claim to. It was neat to know that I was walking where "Ma", "Pa", Mary, Laura and Carrie had walked, lived and played.

After walking to several of the buildings including a dugout house, a shanty, a hay-roof barn, and Ma's little house which had been expanded, we rode a covered wagon from the livestock barn to the one room schoolhouse. This building was moved there from several miles away and is an exact replica of the school that Mary, Laura and Carrie attended and where Laura taught school for awhile.

At the school a "teacher" met us and rang the bell to summon us inside. The children in our group were given prairie dresses and bonnets to wear and the boys got straw hats. She gave us a great history lesson on the area and the Ingalls. She then got the children to stand up front and do a spelling bee and sing a song. Very cute.

When school was dismissed we boarded the covered wagon for the ride back to the livestock barn. This concluded our tour and we left the homestead for the town of De Smet in search of more Ingalls history.

After a quick sandwich at the Oxbow Restaurant we drove to the Laura Ingalls Wilder Memorial Society building. There we found the Surveyor's House which was the first house that the Ingalls family lived in upon arriving in De Smet. You see, Pa had taken a job with the railroad and moved there to help with the construction. When winter came the construction stopped, but, they stayed in the little house through the winter almost starving to death. The following spring is when Pa laid claim to 160 acres of land just outside what is now De Smet, SD.

When the town started growing, Pa became very involved in the community, offering his skills both as the town carpenter and in local government. He even served as De Smet's first Justice of the Peace. He later built a house in town where he and Ma lived till their death.

There is so much more story here, but if you are interested, I suggest that you do a little research yourself. I bought a book called The Little House Guidebook, which tells about each place they lived and continues on with Laura, Almanzo and Rose and where they lived.

As a Little House on The Prairie fan, this day was especially exciting for me. I know that the TV series glamorizes the truth, but I could see a lot of what was on the shows happening there on the homestead. Now I will have to visit the other homesteads so I can tie it all together.

Just another plus to full timing - I would never have discovered De Smet and the Ingalls history otherwise.

Tomorrow we are heading to the Amana Colonies in Iowa with a overnight stop somewhere. See you when we get there!