Sioux Falls of the Big Sioux River. Laura mentions crossing this river to get to De Smet in her "By the Shores of Silver Lake" book. A local resident said that they had gotten a lot of snow and rain this year, so the falls were really active. What a treat for us!
A great view from the observation deck at the top of the tower!
A gift shop employee told us about this science museum at the Washington Pavilion of Arts and Science in Sioux Falls. We learned how a tornado forms, played on a walking piano, learned how to build sturdy Lego structures to withstand an earthquake, etc. There were three floors of activities!
Walnut Grove, Minnesota. The quilt in the top left was used by both Laura and her daughter, Rose. The fireplace mantle in the bottom left photo was the actual one used on set of the Little House TV series.
The museum had several buildings to look through. This was a chapel built by a high school shop class in 1983. It's not the exact size of a real chapel, but it helps you get the idea of what one would have looked like then.
This play area was called "Grandma's Attic" and was in the building called "Grandma's House". The house was also not associated with Laura Ingalls Wilder, but was a representation of what homes were like in the 1890's.
This "dugout" was constructed to the same dimensions as Laura described in her book, "On the Banks of Plum Creek". Because it's constructed above-ground, it has plaster walls which it normally would not have.
The Little Red Schoolhouse was representative of a one-room country school that children attended during the 1800's.
The Heritage Lane building had several exhibits...covered wagon, store, post office, bank, newspaper printing, farm tools, etc.
Pa, Ma, Mary, and Laura
Big Rock was around when Laura lived there, but as you can read from the plaque in the bottom right photo, it may have gotten moved from its original location behind the dugout. Even so, it was fun to stand on it and stick our feet in Plum Creek! I wish we could have walked in Plum Creek, but because of the extra snow and rain, it was pretty deep and flowing fast!
This is the original location of the dugout, now just a depression in the side of the hill. A family bought this farm many years ago not knowing its historical connection. They now let the public view these original landmarks for a small per-car donation of $5. They have tables set up if you'd like to have a picnic as well. The bottom right photo is of the plum thickets (foreground) and the land behind the dugout.
Now on to De Smet, SD! This homestead museum is on the actual land the Ingalls lived and farmed on.
Sod house replica built into the side of a hill.
This is an example of a claim shanty mentioned in "By the Shores of Silver Lake" and "The Long Winter". It is an original built in 1878, but not by the Ingalls family.
The hayroof barn and several of the types of animals the Ingalls would have raised back then.
Pumping well water
Hailey said, "Mom, did you really just take a picture of the garden?" My reply, "Hailey, when have you known me to NOT take a picture of a garden?" In the bottom left photo, the girls discover a red potato peeking up through the dirt.
This is what the Ingalls homestead would have looked like.
This was hanging in the homestead. It's neat to see what they actually looked like!
Chores! Learning what it was like washing clothes by hand and hanging them out to dry. Hailey works on trimming the grass with a hand-powered lawn mower.
Large windmill!
Riding in a covered wagon (a little bit bigger than a typical one) out to the school house. The girls each got a turn to "drive".
We took two different trips out to the school house (over two days), so the girls got to drive two different kinds of horses. The white ones are Percherons...mother and daughter. Very pretty and big horses!
In one school session, there were 4 girls of descending heights that got to represent the Ingalls girls...Mary, Laura, Carrie (Hailey) and Grace (Clara). A little gopher came out to visit us outside the school house. They said the gophers did a lot of damage to their field corn crop this year.
Riding horses and driving pony carts!
If you ask the girls what their favorite thing was, they'd tell you the kittens! There were two groups of kittens (one in the hayroof barn and the other in the horse barn). Yes, they wanted to bring all of them home!
Flindts Garage. The girls learned how the Ingalls ground wheat in coffee grinders and twisted hay (from "The Long Winter"). They also got to make their own corn cob dolls.
These are the five cottonwood trees that Pa planted which still stand today!
The gravesites for some of the Ingalls family (Charles, Caroline, Mary, Grace, Carrie, and baby boy Wilder) as well as the Boasts' (good friends and neighbors of the Ingalls'). I love Hailey's reflection in the stone (back of the Boasts' gravestone) in the bottom right photo. It's pretty clear for her not being that close to it!
We went on a house tour in the town of De Smet. Top left is the Surveyor's house (original) mentioned in the "By the Shores of Silver Lake" book. Top right is the First School of De Smet (original)...Laura and Carrie attended school here. Inside are original blackboards with chalk drawings...really neat! Bottom right is the Brewster School (replica)...Laura taught here in "These Happy Golden Years". Bottom left is the final home of the Ingalls family (original) built in 1887. Only one picture existed of the interior of the home and they were able to create a replica of the wallpaper to hang in that room. I wish we could have taken pictures in these buildings, but they didn't allow it.
Pretending to play school in the Discovery Center. They could have done this for hours! When it was Clara's turn to be teacher, she stood up there, welcomed the class, and told me, "No electricity" as I was taking a picture of her. :-)
Driving through town and viewing some of the original buildings/sites. Top left is the Mead Hotel site (now grocery store) and to the left of that is the Wilder brothers store site. Top right is Pa's store site (on the corner). Bottom left is the Congregational Church (Pa helped build this church and the Ingalls attended it). It has been added to and changed some since then. Bottom right is the 1884 bell from the Congregational Church (now standing outside the United Church of Christ in De Smet).
Lots of land to run on!
Standing in a field of oats!
With all the open land in South Dakota, we saw many of these rolls along the edges of farm fields to use in preventing snow drifts in the winter. Most of them were made from weeds and grass along the roadside instead of hay or straw.
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