A pair of ponies graze in a shady pasture beneath large, leafy trees, with a wooden fence running behind them and sunlight filtering through the branches on a bright summer day.

A mare stands watch over her four‑day‑old foal beneath the prairie trees at the Ingalls Homestead in De Smet, South Dakota, a quiet moment on the family’s original claim

​I have a confession to make: I was 50 before I read Laura Ingalls Wilder's Little House on the Prairie series. I can hear the collective gasp of all the shocked women reading this post. Blasphemy, I know!


In my defense, when I was about the age when all the other little girls were madly absorbing these books, playing "Holly Hobbie" dress up, and dreaming about being Laura, my local librarian marched me over to the adult section of the town’s public library and handed me an Agatha Christie novel. I never stepped foot in the children’s section of the library again.


Looking back, I’m not sure what I was doing when the television series came out because I didn’t watch that either. Oh, I saw an episode or two, but without the background of the books, I really didn’t get it. Maybe it was just too “girly” for me; I hated pink, didn’t play with dolls, and was the only kid in my neighborhood with a complete football uniform, shoulder pads, and all.


Needless to say, my husband was more than a bit skeptical when I suggested driving up to DeSmet, South Dakota, for a “Little House on the Prairie” weekend.


Five of the nine Little House books were based on Laura Ingalls Wilder’s life while she was living in DeSmet, South Dakota. She and her family moved to the DeSmet area in 1879 at the beginning of the book By the Shores of Silver Lake, and she spent her teenage years living there.  



Laura Ingalls Wilder Memorial Society 

105 Olivet Ave SE., DeSmet 

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Your first stop should be the Laura Ingalls Wilder Memorial Society. Be sure to pick up a map of all the downtown locations, and if you have the time, take the guided tour.

 

A couple of significant buildings have been moved onto the Memorial Society property. They even have a recreation of the Brewster School, where Laura first taught. After touring the interiors of these buildings, we followed the tour guide to the Ingalls Home that Charles built in town. ​


A small white wooden house known as the Surveyors’ House sits on a neatly kept lawn, with a front ramp leading to the entrance and a sign identifying it as the place where the Ingalls family lived, surrounded by leafy trees on a bright day.

The Surveyors’ House in De Smet, South Dakota, where the Ingalls family lived during the winter of 1879–1880, preserved today with its original footprint and prairie setting.

In the book By the Shores of Silver Lake, Laura Ingalls Wilder wrote about living in this house during the first winter the Ingalls family spent on the Dakota Prairies. Charles Ingalls worked for the railroad, and the family moved into the Surveyor House for that first winter in South Dakota. 

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It is the oldest building in DeSmet. The railroad built this railroad company house on the north shore of Silver Lake around 1879, a year before there was even a town located here. It was then moved into town in 1884. 

 

According to Pa’s journal, the Ingalls family moved in on December 1, 1879. The family only spent their first winter in the house. After that, the house often served as a hotel for the many homesteaders coming through the area. 





Laura Ingalls Wilder and her sister Carrie attended the first school of DeSmet from 1880 through 1881. The building was brand new when they started attending school. The citizens of the city provided all the materials and built it themselves, but the school was too small, and the town quickly outgrew it after the first year.


In the book The Long Winter, Laura describes the first time she saw the schoolhouse with her sister, Carrie:

The First School of De Smet, a restored one‑room schoolhouse where early Dakota Territory students were taught, preserved today with its garden path, flagpole, and hand pump on the Ingalls Homestead grounds.

The First School of De Smet, a restored one‑room schoolhouse on the Dakota prairie, preserved with its brick walkway, garden plantings, and hand pump much as early settlers would have known it.

It as a building standing all by itself. It had windows on each side, a stovepipe that wasn’t in use at the time and a boarded in entry. All the desks were patent desks made from wood, varnished as smooth as glass and had black iron feet. A large heating stove stood in the middle of the room. 
The coatroom of De Smet’s first school, evoking the setting from The Long Winter, with outerwear, hats, and a water pail arranged much as students would have left them during the harsh Dakota Territory winters.

The coatroom inside De Smet’s first school, arranged with coats, hats, and a water pail much as students would have known it during the era depicted in The Long Winter.

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Laura Ingalls Wilder describes this coatroom at the first school of DeSmet in her book, The Long Winter:

There was no time to say anymore for the teacher came to the door with the hand bell, and they all went in the school. They hung their coats and hoods on a row of nails in the entry where a broom stood in the corner by the water pail on the bench. Then they all went into the schoolroom.
Inside the First School of De Smet, wooden desks, slate boards, and a central cast‑iron stove recreate the classroom where early Dakota Territory students learned during the years Laura Ingalls Wilder wrote about.

Inside the First School of De Smet, rows of wooden desks, slate boards, and a cast‑iron stove recreate the classroom environment early Dakota Territory students knew during the years Laura Ingalls Wilder later wrote about.


Only used one year, by 1885, it had been sold and remodeled into a house. Many families lived in it over the years. The Laura Ingalls Wilder Society purchased the home in 1999 and restored it to the days of Laura Ingalls Wilder. The original chalkboards were found under many layers of wallpaper.  ​


A weathered wooden claim shanty stands beside a canvas‑topped covered wagon on a grassy prairie, its open doorway revealing a simple table and chair inside, evoking the isolated Brewster School setting from Laura Ingalls Wilder’s teaching years.

The Brewster School, a rough one‑room claim shanty on the open Dakota prairie, shown with its weathered boards and nearby covered wagon much as it appeared when Laura Ingalls Wilder taught here during the winter of 1883–84.

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This building is a recreation of Brewster School, the first school where Laura Ingalls Wilder taught after earning her teaching certificate at sixteen. Brewster School was located 12 miles southwest of DeSmet. 


A quote from These Happy Golden Years, about Laura teaching at Brewster School:  


​Only yesterday she was a schoolgirl, now she was a school teacher. This had happened so suddenly. But tomorrow she would be teaching at Brewster settlement. It was twelve miles from town and Laura did not know what it would be like. She did not know anyone there.
The interior of the Brewster School, a rough one‑room claim shanty much like the one where Laura Ingalls Wilder taught during the winter of 1883–84, furnished with wooden desks, slate boards, a cast‑iron stove, and a simple teacher’s table.

The interior of the Brewster School, its plank walls, cast‑iron stove, and worn desks reflecting the stark, isolated conditions of Laura Ingalls Wilder’s teaching winter.


It was the first time Laura had slept away from home, and living with the Brewster family while teaching at the school was very trying. Mrs. Brewster was apparently clinically depressed, and one night, Laura awoke to find Mrs. Brewster threatening her husband with a knife.

​

During this time, Laura and her future husband, Almanzo Wilder, started courting. Laura was miserable, but every Friday, no matter what the weather, Almanzo Wilder arrived to take Laura home to her family for the weekend. Laura was determined to finish the term as her money helped send Mary to the College of the Blind in Iowa.  



Charles Ingalls Home

210 3rd St SW, De Smet


Tours leave from the Laura Ingalls Wilder Memorial Society. 


A preserved Ingalls family home in De Smet, shown as a gray wood‑sided house with a gabled roof, porch steps, and well‑kept landscaping.

The house that Pa built in town, a neatly kept wood‑frame home with gray siding, shingled roof, and a small front porch, reflecting the Ingalls family’s life after settling in De Smet.


The Ingalls home that Pa built in town was started in 1887. In the beginning, it only had three rooms. The rest of the house was built one room at a time as money, time, and weather permitted. The 5-bedroom home was finally completed in 1889. The house stands in its original location. All windows, doors, woodwork, siding, hinges, and interior windows are original. The cupboards that Pa built for Ma are still in the kitchen.


Laura never actually lived in this house. She married Almanzo Wilder in 1885, and they were living on their own homestead while Pa was building it. This house was never mentioned in any of the Little House books. 


In October of 1901, Laura’s youngest sister, Grace, was married in the parlor.


A year later, in 1902, Pa passed away from a heart attack. Ma and Mary rented out the upstairs part of the house for extra income after that. In 1918, Ma became ill. She passed away on Easter Sunday in 1924.


After Ma passed, Mary decided to visit Carrie in Keystone, South Dakota. Mary suffered a stroke while in Keystone and passed away in 1928. She never returned to this house.


Carrie inherited the house. In 1944, she decided to rent it out, but later sold it to the Ferguson family. 


A wide prairie landscape with a narrow dirt path leading across open grassland under a cloudy sky, marking the hilltop site where Almanzo and Laura Ingalls Wilder’s claim shanty once stood.

The hilltop on the open Dakota prairie where Almanzo and Laura Ingalls Wilder’s homestead claim shanty once stood, now marked only by a narrow path through the grassland beneath a wide, clouded sky.


This was the spot where Almanzo and Laura Ingalls Wilder's homestead claim shanty once stood, located on the hilltop.


It was the birthplace of Laura Ingalls Wilder’s only surviving child, Rose Wilder Lane. Mrs. Lane became a well-known novelist, journalist, and political essayist. Her last reporting assignment took her to Vietnam in 1965, where, at 78, she was the oldest war correspondent. Rose was responsible for convincing her mother, Laura Ingalls Wilder, to write the Little House books.


The Wilders lived here during their early married life, experiencing the fire that destroyed their home, the death of an infant son, and other natural disasters that were part of the daily lives of the South Dakota pioneers.


Laura Ingalls Wilder wrote about the pioneering life:


No one who has not pioneered can understand the fascination and terror of it.

Ingalls Homestead  

20812 Homestead Rd., DeSmet 


This shanty and livestock barn sit on the homestead of Charles Ingalls. Laura Ingalls Wilder lived on this property from 13 through 18 when she and Almanzo Wilder married on August 25, 1885.  In 1886, Charles filed final papers and put the declaration in the DeSmet News. This 157.25-acre homestead cost Charles and Caroline $16.00 in filing fees. 


​The rest of the family lived on the homestead for eight years until Charles was so tired of struggling to make a living off the land that he sold the homestead, and they moved into the house that Pa built in town. 


A rural homestead scene showing a large barn, a modest claim shanty, and a windmill surrounded by broad stretches of green prairie.

A broad view of the Ingalls Homestead on the Dakota prairie, with the large barn, modest claim shanty, and windmill standing against a bright, partly cloudy sky.


Like many other settlers arriving in the 1880s, the Ingalls family was lured to the Dakota Territory by free land. In February 1880, Charles Ingalls filed for this homestead at the land office in Brookings and built a small shanty in preparation for the family's move. 


In the spring of 1880, they moved to the quarter-section of land Pa chose as his homestead. The location of the Ingalls Homestead met their wishes, for it is only a mile from DeSmet. This land was perfect in many ways. It had good water, and he could easily dig a well. The family lived and worked the homestead except for the winter months of 1880-1881 and 1881-1882, when they moved into town in the room above Pa's store.​


A rustic wood‑plank cabin with a shingled roof and porch, surrounded by grass, garden beds, and scattered trees, with clothes drying on a line in the yard.

The Ingalls claim shanty on the Dakota prairie, shown as a simple wooden cabin with a small porch, clothes on the line, and open fields stretching beyond the homestead.

Pa built the family's claim shanty in three stages.


Stage One—In the spring of 1880, he built a 140-square-foot half-house for his family of six. Laure described it as having a slanted roof. 


Stage Two – In 1881, he added the second half, an addition of another 140 square feet. Laura wrote that the new part created two tiny bedrooms with a window. 


Stage Three – While attending the Iowa School for the Blind, Mary learned to play the organ. Pa and Laura worked and saved money to purchase a pump organ as a surprise for Mary’s homecoming.


Pa built a 12-foot-by-16-foot addition to accommodate the new organ. Once completed, Ma declared the shanty a real home. 


The reconstruction of Ingall's claim shanty was built according to the description Pa provided in his proving-up papers. To obtain ownership of a homestead claim, the Testament of Claimant forms were required. 


It is laundry day at Ma’s little house. An old washboard, tub and ringer are set just outside of the claim shanty while rags are drying on the line.
Ma had a strict weekly routine:
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Wash on Monday
Iron on Tuesday
Mend on Wednesday
Churn on Thursday
Clean on Friday
Bake on Saturday
Rest on Sunday
 
A galvanized metal wash tub on a stand with a hand‑cranked wringer and a wooden washboard, set in a grassy yard with white laundry hanging on a clothesline behind it.

A pioneer‑era laundry station at the Ingalls Homestead, with a galvanized wash tub, hand‑cranked wringer, and washboard set in the grass beside a line of white garments drying in the prairie sun.

A historic barn on the Ingalls Homestead grounds, shown with its loft-level opening, surrounding grassland, a nearby windmill, and a covered wagon beneath a cloudy sky.

The Ingalls Homestead barn on the open Dakota prairie, with its weathered wood siding, nearby windmill, and a covered wagon resting in the grass beneath a calm, overcast sky.


The horse-drawn wagon at the livestock barn gives rides out to the one-room schoolhouse on the opposite side of the property. 


An open wooden window frame looking out onto a prairie windmill in a green field, illuminated by warm sunset light that glows across the interior boards and the partly cloudy sky.

Looking out from the wooden interior toward the Ingalls Homestead windmill, framed by open shutters and glowing in the warm light of a prairie sunset.

The one‑room schoolhouse on the Charles Ingalls Homestead, now home to the Laura Ingalls Wilder Exhibit, set beside a teeter‑totter and an American flag on the open prairie.

The one‑room schoolhouse on the Charles Ingalls Homestead, home to the Laura Ingalls Wilder Exhibit, set on the open prairie with a teeter‑totter and an American flag completing the scenic yard.


This one room schoolhouse sits on the Charles Ingalls Homestead. Complete with a teeter-totter and American flag. It was placed here to house the Laura Ingalls Wilder Traveling Exhibit. 


A collection of small calico dresses and sunbonnets hanging in a schoolhouse interior, evoking the clothing worn by Laura Ingalls–era prairie girls.

Colorful calico “prairie girl” dresses and sunbonnets hang neatly on hooks in the back of the schoolhouse, inviting every little girl to imagine herself as Laura Ingalls.


Every little girl dreams of being Laura Ingalls from Little House on the Prairie!


These colorful little calico “prairie girl” dresses and sunbonnets were hanging neatly on hooks in the back of one of the schoolhouses, tempting all the little girls to try them on. It made me wish that I were 8 years old again!


When we traveled to DeSmet, I was unaware of a historic byway called the Laura Ingalls Wilder Historic Highway. ​


This drive links all the sites where Laura and her family lived in Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa, and South Dakota. The Little House on the Prairie website has a wealth of information and lists all the historic locations.


​I have since read all the books and am an avid fan! Next, I plan to conquer the television series.




Not every image makes it into my blog. If you enjoyed the photos in this article, please check out my South Dakota Collection for more pictures from this amazing state, or visit my Image Gallery with over 4000 images of locations around the United States.



A framed vertical photograph of pastel pioneer‑style bonnets and dresses hangs on a cream‑colored wall beside a white rocking chair filled with dolls and stuffed animals in a young girl’s bedroom. The image inside the frame shows floral bonnets in soft pink, lavender, and green tones hanging from wooden pegs above a stack of straw hats. A pink nightstand with a lamp, flowers, and a small bunny figurine sits nearby, completing the nostalgic, vintage‑inspired scene.

Pastel pioneer bonnets and dresses evoke the charm of early American domestic life. This photograph captures the delicate textures and nostalgic color palette of handmade garments, inviting viewers to connect with the craftsmanship and quiet beauty of a bygone era.


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