Little House on the Prairie - Laura IngalIs Home

so [Music] uh [Music] so this is a reconstruction on the exact location to the exact dimensions of the ingalls claim shanti and the original structure was built by charles ingalls himself in the spring of 1880 so par built the family's claim shanti in three stages in spring of 1880 he built a half house of 140 square feet for his family of six laura describes it as having a slanted roof so shall we enter the little house on the prairie i think we should take a look this is absolutely beautiful and windy adding to the the wind of the day they had to deal with this kind of thing all the time as well and deep snows in winter and apparently their first year that they were here so they arrived in desmet or d smet i don't know how you pronounce it in 1879 and charles ingalls was working then for the railroad and they stayed in the surveyors house but in spring 1880 was when they purchased this land for homesteading so this was originally the livestock barn and upstairs they've got a little mini stagecoach and what's great about this place is they encourage the children to touch to climb to feel and to get engaged with everything so you don't have to worry about telling your kids to stop climbing on things yeah it's nice it teaches them how to learn rope like they did back then wash clothes how they did back then yeah it's a real hands-on how they did gardening and they would have made their own candles and and for fire now there's not that much wood here so for fire would they have got cow poop cow patties buffalo chips yeah and i don't know whether or not the buffalo were around still back in the 1880s here i wonder if you can burn horse pope [Music] that's a question for you call the audience answer down below and then of course in the winter because of the snow and they have snow for what six to eight months of the year up here i believe maybe not that long but they'd have to have a a sleigh that would be fun though [Music] so this church was built in 1905 and it was 10 miles away from the ingles homestead and relocated onto the property [Music] wow so this was built to the exact dimensions it was very dark in here let's leave this open for a minute a little table their little wash this is mars weekly routine wash on monday iron on tuesday mend on wednesday churn on thursday clean on friday bake on saturday and rest on sunday sounds like a good routine now stage two was added in 1881 added the second half which was an additional 140 square feet and this created two tiny bedrooms each with a window and then on stage three mary learned to play the organ while she was attending the iowa school for the blind and par and laura worked and saved money to purchase a pump organ as a surprise for mary's homecoming parr also built a 12 foot by 16 foot addition to make room for the organ and now it became a real house this was par's hay roof barn let's see what surprises they have oh we've got oh my goodness kitties [Laughter] look look look there chickens for eggs and i don't know what that is a little oh and we've got a baby cow she's a youngin or he is a little boy hello darling aren't you adorable hello oh am i getting kisses oh sweetheart you want to suckle don't you you've got no teeth [Laughter] oh are you teething now apparently almanzo which was laura's husband he actually trained calves to pull true story all right we'll let those rambunctious bunch play hello darling did you want a little tickle as well oh oops baby kitties baby calves i'm in my element [Music] so in case you guys didn't know we are both animal lovers animals just like some of us more than others we won't go into that right now though but we wanted to just take a moment to give a special shout out to somebody that's doing some very important work that we appreciate so much it's ollie's rat pack yeah now ollie's rat pack is a rescue and transport um non-profit organization kevin does it all from his house in california and his motto is fostering saves lives so get out there and foster a rescued animal so this was the well that part ingalls dug after he built the house and it's quite a distance away from the house and the last thing they put a cover on to stop the baby falling in [Music] and it still works now could you imagine having to walk from the house all this way to get your water and i guess water in those days was a luxury i don't know whether or not it would have frozen in the winter though because they have really really cold winters apart from the tv show in the 70s with melissa gilbert and melissa sue anderson and michael landon right they never made a movie like they did with the other 70s tv shows no they didn't and i'm i guess i just probably because it was too wholesome and family friendly i mean but no blood guts murder and yeah there was no drama per se in it no things that hollywood likes to spice up so according to this sign this is the johnson school and it was established in 1881 so i'm not entirely sure whether or not this is the location of the original school that burnt down and that would have been the school that laura had attended yeah but at the age of 15 laura became a teacher can you believe that 15 years old and she went around to the schools in the area including this one and uh and taught the classes while she was still studying and she gave up teaching i believe in 1885 when she married her husband almanzo and this is you've got all of the wilders and ingalls dates of uh born and died now did you know also so all of the ingalls women that gave birth to baby boys all the baby boys died at birth every single one of them really yep that's bizarre another neat thing about this facility is you can rent one of these bunk houses and behind it you've got like one of the old shepherds wagons i guess it's slightly bigger than tonto a tiny home you can rent those to stay in there's several of them we got a nice picnic table fire pit water and of course dulu so given the choice what would you choose to live in back then one of these a dugout give you a tour inside so you've got the uh sod wall which was dug down into the earth here very cozy dark so i mean you could sleep well in here yeah the thing is also um this is a reproduction dugout but the ingles family lived in one of these when they lived in minnesota at walnut grove yeah so that's option number one now we'll take you over to option number two here's the second choice the shanty so obviously this is built with materials that you could find around maybe have to purchase or take from another structure and look at the newspaper all over the wall to help with insulation so there is a little bit more room in this one more room more light probably would not hold up to the weather as well as the dugout though that's part of the pros and cons i mean but you do have more storage because where the roof pitch is you have got place to put things i don't know ah i think i'd actually prefer the shanty than the dugout yeah i don't know i was wondering kind of leaning and maybe a little bit more towards the dugout one because it to be a little bit at the time cheaper to build you dig it yourself and if you need more storage you dig another room off of it less chance of it you know having fire problems which is as we know the downfall of many many ghost towns and mining camps that's very true actually so material wise it is darker and it probably you know but it probably is insulated better insulated a bit better warmer in the winter and cooler in the summer absolutely hmm now this is quite amazing but these five cottonwood trees it's kind of hard to see it looks like only four but there's a couple in there so these were planted by the father to represent all of his daughters but these are the only ones that remain out of the thousands that he planted it is pretty remarkable to see that piece of history still standing as well while i was doing that last segment andrea's gonna walk about and i think i know exactly where to find her you've got all of them no there's only three i don't know where the fourth one is but these three are all sleepy aren't you darling you're so adorable sound asleep here is the final resting place of charles ingles or parr who died in 1902 i believe from a heart attack and by the looks of the stone he was a mason here we have the mother caroline ingles or ma now this was the baby born to um laura and i believe he was stillborn this is laura's sister mary ingles and caroline ingles swansea now she was known as carrie and she lived in keystone we went to the school that she used to teach at so we hope you've enjoyed our little tour of the ingles homestead there's a lot to see here and do and baby animals to pet and you can also do horse rides and live the life like the people did in those days on the prairie exactly and it's fun it is fun for the entire family if you have children smaller children like i said there's activities that they teach them how to build rope and you know wash clothes that's thing and everything is hands on here so it's not like they're displays you can't touch them they encourage you to get a real hands-on experience which i think is wonderful sorry i'm mesmerized by the little kitty so on that note get out there go and explore put another pin in the atlas and we'll see you on our next adventure and remember to give the videos a thumbs up subscribe if you haven't done already ring the notification bell and for those of you who have already subscribed check that you still are because youtube have a way of unsubscribing people true story bye [Music] you