South Dakota, Part 8 - Continuing on the Laura Ingalls Wilder Tour, and Corn Murals [240525]

Ok, to set the record straight our original itinerary had us visiting only one Laura Ingalls Wilder site on our trek. But we enjoyed our visit to the home and museum at the old Rocky Ridge Farm in Mansfield, MO (covered in "Missouri, Part 1") so much - and our route south could so easily pass through De Smet - that we just couldn't help ourselves.

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Saturday morning we were up at 7 a.m. and back on the road an hour later, heading on our 4 hour journey south to De Smet. We crossed the border back into South Dakota again at 9:45 a.m. . . .

. . . and then almost immediately did a three-point-turn on the narrow little country highway to get a photo of the North Dakota welcome sign, which we had failed to get a picture of on our entry into the state, thanks to still being frazzled by the horrific Google Maps routing snafu (see the story near the end of the Wyoming post). Another three-point-turn (it's almost like they weren't expecting RV's to be trying to turn around repeatedly on that road!) got us pointing the right direction again afterwards. Onward!

We had been using a couple of different websites to plan our visit, and headed to the Wilder Welcome Center (on one of the main streets) first - only to find it closed for the weekend.

The trip into town wasn't a complete waste, though, because the Welcome Center was just a couple of doors down from the Loftus Store - a location prominently featured in The Long Winter.

We drove a few blocks to where a different website said the tours of the historic homes start, and had much better luck there. We were able to buy tickets and join a tour that had just started (rather than having to wait for the next an hour and half later).

Now, one thing that the website (which purports "Tour the original homes and school of the Ingalls family") doesn't make clear is that while most of the buildings are "original", they're not all in their original locations - some were moved to this site, at one point in time or another. All were purchased by the Laura Ingalls Wilder Memorial Society (which we found out has no affiliation at all with the Welcome Center in town) and restored back to the way they would've been in the time of the books. That having been said, the tour began in the Surveyor's House (which the Ingalls family lived in in By the Shores of Silver Lake).

We liked the format of the displays: a mix of informational boards, and excerpts from the relevant Little House book to put the room or artifact in perspective (and refresh the memory of those who read the books oh so long ago). We liked our tour guide - a little less; despite this supposedly being her third season working as a guide, her presentation wasn't particularly polished and her grasp of the facts/history was a bit tenuous at times.

Next up was the re-creation of the Brewster School, where Laura taught her first class in These Happy Golden Years.

Next door was where the First School of De Smet (moved around several times from it's original location, and used as a private residence for years before being bought and restored by the Society), where Laura and Carrie went to school in The Long Winter. The restoration looks a bit funky because they purposely left some areas unfinished so that you can see original elements: original floorboards in the floor, and the plexiglass on the back wall is protecting areas where they uncovered original wainscoting and blackboards beneath newer construction.

The last stop in the tour required getting in our vehicles and caravaning a few blocks through town, since "The House that Pa Built" still stands at it's original location. Charles Ingalls built this house in 1887, two years after Laura and Almanzo were married and moved away so while the rest of the family lived in this house, Laura herself never did.

The tour guide referred to these as the "danger stairs" - apparently too many tourists had gotten injured (or maybe just stuck) in this interior stairwell in the past, so tours now have to use a exterior set of stairs on the back of the house to get to the second floor. The stairwell did not look any steeper or narrower to us than some that we've seen in Japan - or even San Francisco - so 🤷.

Based on the not-so-encouraging display in the Surveyor's House (see above) we asked several different guides/staff members whether Silver Lake still exists or not, and got differing answers. They had to dig up an older staff member who could actually tell us how to get to the remains of Silver Lake (we love directions that include "go past the cement factory, and don't be concerned that the road becomes a gravel one), but armed with that knowledge we found it (or maybe more accurately "the slough formerly known as Silver Lake").

So: how did De Smet stack up against Mansfield? While we don't regret having stopped in De Smet, Mansfield felt overall more professional and polished to us, whereas De Smet feels more like a "work in progress" and we'd have to say that we felt we got a lot more out of our visit to Mansfield than De Smet.

Driving 70 miles southwest from De Smet brought us to the town of Mitchell and our next attraction: The World's Only Corn Palace. We really had no idea what to expect going in, or even what the Corn Palace really is - but apparently it's basically a large arena where they've held their annual Fall Festival / Concert for the past century which is decorated with murals made of cobs of corn. It also has become a huge tourist attraction, drawing hundreds of thousands of visitors a year.

As near as we can figure, the murals on the inside of the arena are permanent while the ones on the outside change every year; the walkways once you get inside the main door are lined with signs showing the history of the Palaces going all the way back to the beginning in 1887 (in Sioux City) and the first Mitchell palace in 1892.

Among the famous performers who have performed on the Corn Palace stage is Lawrence Welk (the young folk are all thinking to themselves "who?" 😉).

The sweet smell of corn permeated the arena area - not sure whether it was from the artwork, the goods for sale, or it was just being piped in for the atmosphere.

The exterior murals were of "Famous South Dakotans". In addition to Mike Miller and Billy Mills on the front of the building (pictured above), the side had Bob Barker (long time host of The Price is Right), Oscar Howe (Corn Palace mural artist), Wild Bill Hickok (Old West sheriff legend), Joe Foss (WWII ace pilot and former South Dakota governor), Charles Gemar (space shuttle astronaut), Becky Hammon (WNBA player/coach), and of course Laura Ingalls Wilder (famous writer).

We had dinner that night at the Mitchell Depot, in order to try a regional specialty: Chislic. It's described as "steak cubes deep fried, served with toast" and essentially was and tasted like meat fondue. Christine had (broiled) Walleye with waffle fries and grilled green beans; the fish was meh, but the beans were really good and we made a note that we should add grilled green beans to our menu rotation.