downtown De Smet

The Loftus Store is still there, but now it mainly sells touristy stuff.

Ward’s is located where Pa’s store was during that harsh winter when they lived in it. We ate a tasty lunch there.

replica of Ma’s cherished china shepherdess

Laura and Almonzo’s wedding photos (taken months later, because that’s when the photographer was able to come)

wedding china and silverware

a pig’s bladder, like the girls loved to play with when they were little!

playing with the pig’s bladder

Pa’s animal book

No photos were allowed inside, but it was so incredible to walk inside this house that Laura thought was so unbelievably huge!

their schoolroom looked much like this. The building was a house after it was a school – the area at the front shows the layers of wallpaper, as well as a door that was later put in.

The desks were much like this, although each seated two…

…like this.

This is what Pa and Laura did with straw from the slough to be able to burn it during the long winter

grinding grain like they had to do during the long winter

Pa built this house, in multiple stages, after Laura and Almonzo got married. It was Pa, Ma, and Mary’s last home.

water pump behind the kitchen

Ma had the back entrance added at some point so she could rent it out and earn money

the dugout

the claim shanty

This puts Tiny Homes to shame!

The house Pa built, in three stages, on the homestead. This is apparently the actual location and dimensions.

Remember those five cottonwood trees that Pa planted in honor of his girls? This is them! With the Big Slough in the background!

running through the prairie, sun bonnet streaming behind

Silver Lake was drained in the 1920s, and even used as a town dump while drained.  The lake is there again, but smaller than it was in Laura’s childhood.  We saw no wolves or wolf tracks.  🙂