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Laura Ingalls Wilder
Author of the "Little House" Books
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Plan Your Armchair Travel Or Fly/Drive Travel to Laura Ingalls Wilder Country
When LAURA INGALLS WILDER started writing her classic "Little House" book series in 1932, she had no idea of creating fame for herself or the places where she had lived. She wrote simply to preserve tales of a lost era in American history, the pioneer period she vividly recalled from her growing-up years on the midwestern frontier in the 1870's and 1880's. When Laura completed her eight-volume series in 1943, she had achieved a lasting and substantial literary picture of pioneer life as she had experienced it in Wisconsin, Kansas, Minnesota, and South Dakota.
"I had no idea I was writing history," Laura remarked when her books were well known both in America and in foreign countries where they were translated. (The books are now printed in over 40 languages.) But readers of all ages accepted the Ingalls and Wilder families as chosen friends. Thousands wrote to Laura at her home on Rocky Ridge Farm in Mansfield, Missouri. Fans sought out the sites of her books and stopped to visit her in her Ozark Mountain home, right up to her death in 1957 at the age of 90.
The visiting still goes on. Immediately after Laura's death, the home she and her husband Almanzo built was preserved and opened for readers. In De Smet, South Dakota, a Laura Ingalls Wilder Memorial Society was founded to offer history and hospitality to increasing numbers of summer tourists. Through the years, each of the book sites has joined the ranks of literary-historical spots dedicated to the pioneering spirit and writings of Laura Ingalls Wilder.
 Information about visiting all of the Laura Ingalls Wilder and Almanzo Wilder home sites can be found in The Little House Guidebook. This informative travel guide was written by William Anderson and color photography provided by Leslie A. Kelly. More than 70 color and historic photos tell the story of the Ingallses travels and show their home sites about which Laura wrote her famous books. Click here now to order from Amazon!
Laura would be pleased at the commemoration of her family, her books and the pioneer history she painstakingly recorded. She would be gratified her present-day friends in her old hometowns keep the doors open to the places she called "The Land of Used-to-Be". For you who come to visit, may this photographic journey provide a happy remembrance of what Laura Ingalls Wilder called "stories that were too good to be lost".
Bill Anderson, an award-winning historian, has researched the life of Laura Ingalls Wilder extensively for his numerous books about the Wilder's family pioneer life on the American prairies. Leslie A. Kelly, internationally known Americana photographer and often referred to as the "Little House Home Sites" Photographer, has made numerous visits to each of the home sites of Laura Ingalls Wilder to document these and other historic areas..
All "Little House" books by Laura Ingalls Wilder are published and copyrighted by HarperCollins Publishers, New York, New York, USA. "Little House" is a registered trademark of HarperCollins Publishers.
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