Hundreds of years ago, North America's largest land mammal, the plains buffalo, roamed the prairie unrestrained. Sadly, those days are gone, but Blue Mounds State Park is dedicated to preserving a small piece of that glorious history.







Charles Ingalls was a homesteader struggling to make a living for his family on a small farm near the town of Walnut Grove, Plum Creek, Minnesota. The Ingalls had moved from the great plains of Kansas to Walnut Grove in search of a future in a young and growing community. With Charles was his wife, Caroline, and their three daughters, teenagers Mary and Laura, and little Carrie.



They settled 1.5 miles north of Walnut Grove along the banks of Plum Creek. Charles and Caroline Ingalls homesteaded the property in 1874. Today, there is a deep depression in the earth where Pa built a dugout to live in when they first arrived.


Dugouts of early settlers were of two styles - built into a bank or dug into the prairie. Sod houses were also built in this area.  The home below has a dirt floor, a roof of peeled cottonwood poles with sod on top and sod walls two feet thick.



You can be an 1870s sod house pioneer for the night by sleeping in a "luxurious" bed & breakfast "soddy" located 20 miles east of Walnut Grove.



Here is the TV Ingalls family.



Laura Ingalls Wilder wrote "Little House on the Prairie" used as the theme for the TV series.

De Smet, South Dakota was the final home of the Ingalls family. Members of the family who rest in the local cemetery are "Pa", Charles P. Ingalls (1836 – 1902), "Ma", Caroline Quiner Ingalls (1839 – 1924), Mary (1865 – 1928), Carrie (Swanzey) (1870 – 1946), and Grace (Dow) (1877 – 1941). An infant son of Laura and Almanzo Wilder, who died in 1889, is also buried here.