Walnut Grove Gears Up For Summer Visitors And New Stories

WALNUT GROVE (WJON News) -- Redwood County's Walnut Grove is getting ready for an influx of visitors this summer. Local leaders are expecting a renewed interest in their community thanks to a new version of the TV show "Little House on the Prairie" set to premiere on Netflix in July.

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Laura Ingalls Wilder Museum in Walnut Grove

Laura Ingalls Wilder Museum Curator Julien Nolan says they have a number of items owned by the famous author.

We have a lot of things on display that were either owned by Laura or made by Laura.  Some quilts, silverware, things like that.  We also have some things that would be era-specific, so they would have been in Walnut Grove at the same time that she was here.

The museum was founded around the time the original TV show, which aired on NBC from 1974 until 1983. Nolan says they also have several items from the original show.

We have some signed autographs, some of the costumes that were used, some signed scripts, and a bunch of other really cool things.

They also have a model of the dugout, which is a replica of the original Ingalls home on the banks of Plum Creek.

Nolan says the original show didn't really stick to what life was like in the real Walnut Grove back in the late 1880s.

One question that we often get is where is the lumber mill? At the time, there weren't a lot of trees out here.  Anyone who has been to the prairie has seen that nowadays there are trees, but back then, there were hardly any, so we obviously didn't have a lumber mill when the Ingalls were here, so Charles didn't work at the lumber mill as he does in the show.

Nolan says the original show was filmed in Simi Valley, California, which has a lot of hills and mountains, whereas the real Walnut Grove is in the prairie and very flat.

He is hopeful the new version of the show will be closer to reality after members of the Netflix art department visited Walnut Grove.

They were trying to really capture what the town would have looked like during Laura's time here.  From my understanding, they are trying to have the current show be closer to the books as opposed to the original show.

Nolan says the filming for the new version was near Winnipeg, so the backdrop should look much more similar to Walnut Grove.

Nolan says, besides the museum, there are several historic stops you can make around the community, including the original Ingalls homesite.

It's now a farm, but it's open to the public to go and see where the Ingalls lived on the banks of Plum Creek.  There are also things throughout the town.  Laura's father helped purchase a bell for the church. Unfortunately, that church no longer exists, but the bell is at the English Lutheran Church here in Walnut Grove, and you can go there and ring the bell yourself.

Nolan says Laura never returned to Walnut Grove, but she wrote several letters to residents there over the years, which they have on display in the Museum.

Wilder Pageant in Walnut Grove

Netflix's new version of "Little House on the Prairie" is scheduled to debut on July 9th. The next day, on July 10th, the 49th annual "Wilder Pageant" opens on the banks of Plum Creek in Walnut Grove.

Erin Richards is the director of the show. She says the live performance has three different scripts that rotate yearly.

Now this one is the second year that we do it, so it's getting into the Ingalls being here when the grasshoppers come, and there's a fire while they are here, actually multiple fires that come while they are here.

Richards says their live show is much closer to what life was really like for the Ingalls family when they lived in Walnut Grove, compared to the original "Little House on the Prairie" that aired on NBC from 1974 to 1983.

We have historians, so we've done a lot of historic research.  Most of our people in the play are real people, they would have been in the community when the Ingalls were here. They are real events that actually happened.

She says they also based their plays on what Laura wrote in her book "On the Banks of Plum Creek" and her longer book "Pioneer Girl".

Richards is hoping the new Netflix show will bring a new interest in the Ingalls family with the younger generation. The Wilder Pageant will run for three weekends in July. Attendance is typically between 400 and 1,000 people each night, but they are anticipating higher interest this year because of the Netflix show.

Tickets are on sale now.

The Ingalls family first arrived in Walnut Grove in 1874, and they stayed for about two years, surviving the coldest winter in Minnesota history and then a locust plague. They moved to Burr Oak, Iowa, for a year, and then came back to Walnut Grove in 1876 and stayed until 1879 before moving to DeSmet, South Dakota.