100 Fun Facts About Little House on the Prairie

In the TV series, the Ingalls farm sits on the banks of which stream near Walnut Grove?

The real town has a population of about 750 and hosts the Laura Ingalls Wilder Museum; the family's dugout was on the banks of Plum Creek.

Who played Charles Ingalls, the family patriarch known as Pa?

Michael Landon agreed to direct the pilot only on condition that he could also play Charles Ingalls, and went on to write, direct and executive-produce much of the series.

Which actress played Laura Ingalls, beating out more than 500 child actresses for the part?

Melissa Gilbert was nine when cast as Laura Ingalls, chosen from more than 500 child actresses; she stayed through the show's final season and later wrote the memoir Prairie Tale.

What nickname did the star and producer give the young actress playing Laura on set?

"Half Pint" was the star's on-set name for the girl playing Laura, echoing Pa's pet name for her in the books; Melissa Sue Anderson, who played Mary, answered to "Missy."

On which network did the series air from 1974 to 1983?

NBC aired the series for its entire 1974-83 run; the network was its star's television home for 30 straight years, from his first hit western in 1959 until 1989.

Why was the role of little Carrie Ingalls played by twins?

Hollywood work rules limited how long small children could be on set, so twins Lindsay and Sidney Greenbush split the role of Carrie, the same reason so many TV toddlers are played by twins.

What happens to Mary Ingalls at the end of season four?

She goes blind in the two-part season-four finale, her sight lost to the aftereffects of scarlet fever; the family then sends her to a school for the blind in Iowa.

Which orphan boy do the Ingalls adopt after meeting him in the town of Winoka?

Matthew Labyorteaux's Albert stayed with the family after they returned from Dakota to Walnut Grove.

Which family owns the mercantile in Walnut Grove?

The Olesons ran Oleson's Mercantile: Nels was stern and decent, Harriet doting and snobbish, and daughter Nellie became one of television's great villains.

Who played Nellie Oleson?

Alison Arngrim played Nellie from the first season and titled her 2010 memoir Confessions of a Prairie Bitch: How I Survived Nellie Oleson and Learned to Love Being Hated.

In Laura Ingalls Wilder's books, Nellie Oleson was a composite of how many real girls?

Three real girls, Nellie Owens, Genevieve Masters and Stella Gilbert, were rolled into the one blonde tormentor Wilder named Nellie Oleson.

Whom does Nellie eventually marry on the show?

Percival Dalton, played by Steve Tracy, was hired to teach Nellie to cook and run her restaurant; his patience mellowed her, and the couple had twins.

Which character arrives in season six as Walnut Grove's new schoolteacher?

Eliza Jane Wilder, played by Lucy Lee Flippin, takes over the Walnut Grove school in the season-six premiere, Back to School, where a teenage Laura is among her pupils.

After Pa's actor left following season eight, what was the series renamed?

Little House: A New Beginning was the title of the ninth and final season, after Charles and Caroline had moved the family to Burr Oak, Iowa, leaving Laura and her husband at the centre of the stories.

How does the 1984 finale movie The Last Farewell end?

The townspeople blow up their own buildings rather than surrender Walnut Grove to a land baron, and the dynamiting was real: the lease required the sets to be cleared from the land.

Where were the exteriors of Walnut Grove and the Ingalls farm actually filmed?

Big Sky Ranch in Simi Valley, California held the Walnut Grove and Ingalls farm sets for all nine seasons; Old Tucson Studios in Arizona stood in for bigger towns such as Mankato.

Who played Dr. Hiram Baker, Walnut Grove's physician?

Kevin Hagen played Dr. Hiram Baker for all nine seasons, one of the few cast members on hand from the first season to the last.

Which earlier Western made the actor who played Pa a star, as Little Joe Cartwright?

Bonanza ran for 14 seasons from 1959 to 1973, and Little Joe Cartwright, the youngest Cartwright son, made its future Pa a household name before he moved to the prairie.

How many colour episodes of the series were produced?

204 episodes were produced over nine seasons between 1974 and 1983, all in colour, not counting the pilot movie or the later follow-up television movies.

The pilot movie, first aired March 30, 1974, was based on which of Wilder's books?

The pilot adapted Little House on the Prairie, the third book, the story of the family's year in Indian Territory; the series proper then moved the Ingalls north to Minnesota.

Which producer acquired the Little House rights and hired Landon, only to leave in 1974 after clashing with him?

NBC backed Landon, and Friendly ended up a silent partner with a credit on every episode.

Pa's actor went on to star in which series about an angel on probation, from 1984 to 1989?

Highway to Heaven cast its creator as Jonathan Smith, an angel on probation, with Victor French as his partner Mark Gordon; the pair had worked together as Charles and Mr. Edwards.

The star of the show died in 1991, at age 54, of what illness?

Pancreatic cancer, diagnosed in April 1991 after it had spread to his liver, killed him on July 1 that year at his Malibu ranch; he had discussed the diagnosis on The Tonight Show in May.

Melissa Sue Anderson got a 1978 Emmy nomination as Mary and won the next year for what?

An ABC Afterschool Special, Which Mother Is Mine?, earned Anderson a 1979 Daytime Emmy for children's programming; her 1978 nomination was a Primetime Emmy for playing Mary.

Which of Wilder's books was published first, in 1932?

In the Big Woods, published in 1932 when Wilder was 65, opens the series with the family's log cabin in the Wisconsin forest and the butchering, sugaring and storytelling of a pioneer year.

The 1933 book Farmer Boy is about the boyhood of which character?

Almanzo Wilder, Laura's future husband, is the farmer boy; the book follows a year on his family's farm near Malone, New York, beginning just before his ninth birthday.

The novel Little House on the Prairie is set in which state, where the family squatted on Osage land?

Kansas, near modern Independence, is where Pa built the cabin on the Osage Diminished Reserve; the family had no legal right to be there and left after about a year.

What breed of dog was Jack, the family pet in the early books?

A brindle Bulldog, Jack trotted under the covered wagon on every move in the early books; his death at the start of By the Shores of Silver Lake is one of the series' saddest moments.

How many of the Little House books were Newbery Honor Books?

Five of the books were Newbery Honor Books: every volume published from 1937 to 1943 was named one, though none won the medal outright.

Whose illustrations replaced the originals when the books were reissued in a uniform edition in 1953?

Garth Williams, who also drew Charlotte's Web, visited Wilder at her Missouri farm in 1947 and toured the real Ingalls sites before illustrating the 1953 edition.

Laura Ingalls Wilder was born in 1867 near which Wisconsin village?

Pepin, on the Mississippi's Lake Pepin, lay seven miles south of the log cabin where she was born on February 7, 1867; a replica cabin marks the site today.

Where did Laura marry, in the town where her parents and sister Mary lived out their lives?

De Smet, South Dakota, where Pa filed his homestead claim in 1880, was where Laura married on August 25, 1885; her parents and Mary are buried in the town cemetery.

What nicknames did Laura and Almanzo use for each other?

Manly and Bess were their pet names: she shortened Almanzo to Manly, and he called her Bess, from her middle name Elizabeth, because his sister was also a Laura.

Laura and Almanzo eventually settled on Rocky Ridge Farm near which Missouri town?

Mansfield, in the Missouri Ozarks, was where they bought Rocky Ridge Farm in 1894 and built it up with poultry, dairy and an apple orchard after wheat had failed them in Dakota.

Who was the driving force behind Laura writing and publishing her first book?

Her daughter Rose Wilder Lane, already a successful author and journalist, pushed her mother to write the memoir Pioneer Girl and then edited the manuscripts closely, and often rockily, across the whole series.

Before the novels, Wilder spent more than a decade as a columnist for which publication?

The Missouri Ruralist printed her first article in February 1911, and she went on to write a regular column for the farm paper until 1924, under the byline Mrs. A. J. Wilder.

How old was Laura Ingalls Wilder when she died in 1957?

90: born February 7, 1867, she died at home on February 10, 1957, just after her birthday, having survived her husband by a little more than seven years.

Why did the American Library Association rename the Laura Ingalls Wilder Medal in 2018?

Language in her books seen as racially biased, especially toward Native Americans, prompted the 2018 change; the prize became the Children's Literature Legacy Award, with Wilder its first recipient in 1954.

Which book, sixth in the series, spans the shortest stretch of time of any volume?

The Long Winter follows the Hard Winter of 1880-81, when blizzards from October to April cut the town off from supply trains and the family twisted hay for fuel.

Which actress played Hester-Sue Terhune, the teacher at the blind school?

Ketty Lester, a singer best known for the 1962 hit Love Letters, played Hester-Sue Terhune from 1978 through the final season, first at the blind school and later in Walnut Grove.

Which streaming service announced a new Little House series in January 2025?

Netflix gave the new series a straight-to-series order in January 2025, with Rebecca Sonnenshine as showrunner, reviving reboot plans first floated in 2020.

What happened to Laura's little brother Charles Frederick, born in Walnut Grove in 1875?

He died at nine months old, in August 1876 near South Troy, Minnesota, while the family was moving east; 'Freddie' never appears in the books, which skip the Burr Oak, Iowa years.

Who wrote and conducted the TV series' theme, 'The Little House'?

David Rose, the bandleader whose 1962 instrumental The Stripper topped the charts, wrote and conducted the theme and scored the series throughout its run.

Where in California was location filming for the pilot movie done?

Sonora, in the Sierra foothills of Tuolumne County, supplied the open grassland for the pilot's prairie scenes before production moved to a permanent ranch set for the series.

In season 4, the show peaked at what rank in the Nielsen ratings, NBC's best that season?

Seventh place in the 1977-78 Nielsen season rankings was the show's peak, a year in which it was also the network's highest-rated series.

In September 1976 the series moved to which weeknight slot, where it stayed until cancellation?

Monday at 8:00 ET became the show's home from September 1976 until the end in 1983, after two seasons on Wednesday nights at the same hour.

Which blind teacher at the Winoka school marries Mary Ingalls and later regains his sight to become a lawyer?

Adam Kendall, played by Linwood Boomer, marries Mary in the 1978 episode The Wedding; after an explosion restores his sight, he passes the bar and practises law.

Which Harper children's editor commissioned the new illustrations for the 1953 uniform edition?

Ursula Nordstrom, who ran Harper's juvenile department from 1940 to 1973, commissioned the new drawings and also edited Charlotte's Web and Goodnight Moon.

In The Long Winter, Almanzo Wilder and which friend risk their lives to fetch wheat for the starving town?

Cap Garland rode out with Almanzo between blizzards to buy seed wheat from a lone homesteader on the open prairie and haul it back to the starving town.

How many episodes long was Laura, the Prairie Girl, the 1975-76 Japanese anime based on the books?

26 episodes of Sōgen no Shōjo Laura ran on Japan's TBS network from October 1975 to March 1976, adapting the early books.

Which future Emmy-winning director began his TV career as orphan James Cooper on Little House on the Prairie?

Jason Bateman joined in 1981 as a boy adopted by the Ingalls family along with his sister. He won his directing Emmy in 2019 for Ozark.

Which country legend guest-starred on Little House on the Prairie as an ex-convict out to steal church donations?

Johnny Cash played Caleb Hodgekiss in The Collection, with his real-life wife June cast as the crook's wife. Meeting the people of Walnut Grove gives the character a change of heart.

Which future Oscar winner appeared as a child extra in a Little House on the Prairie episode directed by his father?

Sean Penn was a schoolboy in 1974 when his father, Leo, directed episodes of the series. He went on to win Best Actor twice, for Mystic River and Milk.

Which Hall of Fame Los Angeles Rams lineman played farmer Jonathan Garvey on Little House on the Prairie?

Merlin Olsen was picked for the Pro Bowl 14 times, every year but his last, before he turned to acting. He later led a drama of his own, Father Murphy.

The actor who played Mary Ingalls's husband on Little House on the Prairie later created which Fox sitcom?

Malcolm in the Middle was created by Linwood Boomer, who based it on his own life story. He had moved behind the camera after his years on the prairie drama.

Which future Beverly Hills, 90210 star joined Little House on the Prairie at eleven as Jenny Wilder?

Shannen Doherty won the part in 1982 and played Laura's orphaned niece through the final season. Heathers, Brenda Walsh and Charmed all came later.

With coal gone during the blizzards of 1880–81, what did Laura Ingalls Wilder's family twist into sticks to burn?

Hay was all that was left once the coal and wood were gone. Trains could not reach the town until the spring thaw, so nothing else could be brought in.

Which stage-trained actress, a Fulbright scholar in London, played Caroline Ingalls on Little House on the Prairie?

Karen Grassle studied at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art on her Fulbright, then auditioned for the mother's role and won the part.

Which actor, who also directed episodes, played Pa's loyal friend Isaiah Edwards on Little House on the Prairie?

Victor French left in 1977 to star as a Georgia police chief in a sitcom of his own, then came back to play Mr. Edwards until the series ended.

Katherine MacGregor, who missed the finale for a pilgrimage to India, played which Walnut Grove gossip?

Harriet Oleson was a comic part and the first credit MacGregor took under that name. She played it from the first season in 1974 to the last in 1983.

Which minister, played by Dabbs Greer, leads the Walnut Grove congregation throughout Little House on the Prairie?

Reverend Alden is in the books too, where he sends the snowbound family a Christmas barrel with a turkey in it. Greer's last film role was the aged Paul Edgecomb in The Green Mile.

The TV version of Little House on the Prairie is set on a farm near Walnut Grove in which state?

Minnesota has a real Walnut Grove, where the Ingalls family lived in the 1870s and a museum is dedicated to the author.

In the Little House books, which instrument does Pa play for Laura and Mary on winter evenings?

Fiddle music was a winter treat because Pa was too tired from farm work to play in summer. The real Charles Ingalls loved music and reading.

In the fourth Little House book, which swarming insects destroy Pa's long-awaited wheat crop?

Locusts struck in the real plague of 1874, also called the Grasshopper Plague, when hordes of Rocky Mountain locusts invaded the Great Plains.

In the fourth Little House book, a rude town girl mistreats Laura's dog, then goes wading and gets covered in what?

Leeches cling to the storekeeper's daughter at a party Ma gives for the town girls, and Laura feels vindicated. The guest had been rude to Ma as well.

Which Ingalls sister, born in 1877 and a baby in the later Little House books, was the youngest of the family?

Grace was the fifth and last child of Charles and Caroline Ingalls. Her older sisters help care for her on the homestead in Little Town on the Prairie.

The actress who played Laura on Little House on the Prairie was elected president of which union in 2001?

Screen Actors Guild members chose her over Valerie Harper, the star of Rhoda, after a contentious campaign. She held the post until 2005.

Which Walnut Grove schoolteacher teaches Laura and Mary in the first four seasons of Little House on the Prairie?

Miss Beadle marries in the fourth season and becomes Mrs. Simms. Her actress also worked with the director of Eraserhead and Twin Peaks, appearing in both.

Which actor joined Little House on the Prairie in its sixth season as the young farmer Laura goes on to marry?

Dean Butler went on to play Buffy's father, Hank Summers, on Buffy the Vampire Slayer. He has also made bonus features for the prairie drama's DVD sets.

Which old minstrel tune does Isaiah Edwards keep singing and whistling on Little House on the Prairie?

Old Dan Tucker was made popular by the Virginia Minstrels in 1843, and the TV series gave the song a fresh burst of attention more than a century later.

On Little House on the Prairie, which beloved horse does Laura sell to the Walnut Grove storekeeper at Christmas?

Bunny goes to the storekeeper's spoiled daughter, who mistreats her. Two seasons later Laura wins the horse back.

After Jack dies on Little House on the Prairie, which stray dog follows Charles home and slowly wins Laura over?

Bandit trails Charles all the way from Mankato, but a grieving Laura refuses to bond with him at first. Guilt finally sends her running to find him.

In the first season of Little House on the Prairie, the wild creature Laura names Jasper is what kind of animal?

A raccoon named Jasper bites Laura and Jack, then runs away. The scare ends when a healthy Jasper comes back, proving a second animal had been raiding the chickens.

Which Oscar-winning actor played the kindly stranger who shelters runaway Laura on Little House on the Prairie?

Ernest Borgnine, who won his Oscar for Marty, played Johnathan in The Lord Is My Shepherd, a double-length story from the first season. Laura meets him on the mountain she climbs to pray.

Which Hollywood song-and-dance veteran guest-starred on Little House on the Prairie as the happy-go-lucky Toby Noe?

Ray Bolger, the Scarecrow of The Wizard of Oz, played Toby twice: first he gambles away his lottery winnings, then he comes back bankrupt in a later episode.

Which real town, named after a Sioux chief, is a frequent destination on Little House on the Prairie?

Sleepy Eye takes its name from a lake named for the chief, who was known for his droopy eyelids and met President James Monroe in 1824.

A six-part Little House on the Prairie miniseries was broadcast in 2005 as part of which studio's anthology series?

Disney showed the adaptation under its Wonderful World of Disney banner, with Cameron Bancroft as Charles Ingalls.

In the final season of Little House on the Prairie, which blacksmith's family moves into the old Ingalls home?

The Carters came from New York City: John took over as town blacksmith and his wife Sarah started a newspaper, the Walnut Grove Gazette.

Which Little House on the Prairie character, a founder of Walnut Grove, owns the town's lumber mill?

Lars Hanson dies peacefully in the fifth season, happy in the knowledge that the town he loved would live on.

In the fourth Little House book, Pa trades the family's horses for what kind of creekside home?

A dugout came with the creekside land Pa traded for soon after the family arrived by covered wagon. The 1937 novel was named a Newbery Honor book the next year.

In the first Little House book, what name does Laura give the rag doll she receives for Christmas?

Charlotte arrives the year the cousins come to stay for Christmas. The 1932 novel was its author's first, published when she was in her sixties.

In the first Little House book, the family gathers at Grandma Ingalls's house for a dance after making what?

Maple syrup came from sap harvested at the late-winter sugaring off, and Laura remembered the dance that followed for the rest of her life.

In the novel Little House on the Prairie, the whole family falls ill with which disease, blamed on eating watermelon?

Malaria was also put down to breathing the night air. The settlers in the story had no idea what really spread it.

In By the Shores of Silver Lake, Pa moves the family west after taking a bookkeeping job where?

A railroad camp paid Pa fifty dollars a month to keep its books. When the workers went back east for the winter, the family stayed on in the surveyors' house.

In Little Town on the Prairie, what job does Laura take in town to help pay for Mary's college?

Sewing shirts was work Laura hated, but a rush of newcomers to town meant plenty of it. In the end Pa also sold a cow to cover the college costs.

Which Little House book, found as a pencil manuscript after the author's death, was published in 1971?

The First Four Years went to press without editing beyond minor spelling fixes, straight from the dime-store tablets it was written on.

Which autobiography, written by Laura Ingalls Wilder around 1930, was first published in an annotated edition in 2014?

Pioneer Girl includes stories its author felt were inappropriate for children, such as a drunk man accidentally setting himself on fire.

Which disease struck Laura Ingalls Wilder's husband in 1888 and left him partially paralysed?

Diphtheria hit both of them that spring, and even after the paralysis in his legs eased he needed a cane to walk.

Carrie Ingalls married David Swanzey, a man remembered for his part in naming which Black Hills landmark?

Mount Rushmore's naming involved the widower she wed in 1912, a year after she settled in Keystone. Before that she had set type for newspapers across the state.

Early reviews of Little House on the Prairie kept comparing it to which family drama, then a ratings hit?

The Waltons comparison flattered the show's star, and one reviewer felt the pilot film had enough family warmth and struggle to outdo its rival.

Which actor, earlier the ship's doctor on Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, played Nels on Little House on the Prairie?

Richard Bull made Nels the steady, fair-minded pillar of his family, and stayed with the show from 1974 to its end.

Which future Fox News anchor played adopted daughter Cassandra Cooper Ingalls on Little House on the Prairie?

Melissa Francis spent two seasons as Cassandra, then grew up to anchor shows on Fox Business Network and Fox News until 2020.

Laura Ingalls Wilder left which Iowa town out of her books, though her family helped run a hotel there in 1876?

Burr Oak is skipped entirely between the fourth and fifth novels. The Masters Hotel there became a museum to the author.

In the novel Little House on the Prairie, what do Laura and Mary name the two mustangs Pa trades for?

Pet and Patty are traded away in the next book, and the family later gets a new pair known as the Christmas horses.

Which actress, later an Emmy winner on St. Elsewhere, played Isaiah Edwards's wife on Little House on the Prairie?

Bonnie Bartlett and her husband, William Daniels, won their Emmys on the same night in 1986 for playing a married couple on the hospital drama.

In These Happy Golden Years, Laura boards with which unfriendly couple while teaching her first school?

The Brewsters were really the Bouchies: the surname was a pseudonym, one of very few the author used, chosen to protect an unpleasant couple's privacy.

In which Little House TV movie, a Christmas story set in 1896, is Laura's baby daughter kidnapped in Mankato?

Bless All the Dear Children was filmed before the finale but aired last of the post-series movies, held back for the Christmas season.

Which biography of Laura Ingalls Wilder by Caroline Fraser won the 2018 Pulitzer Prize for Biography?

Prairie Fires, subtitled The American Dreams of Laura Ingalls Wilder, also won the National Book Critics Circle Award for Biography.

Which heir to the Little House books, the 1976 Libertarian candidate for president, approved the TV series?

Roger MacBride had been a faithless elector in 1972, casting his vote for the party's first ticket instead of the Republican one he was pledged to.

Snowbound in 1880–81, Laura Ingalls Wilder's family ground wheat for their daily bread in which kitchen tool?

A coffee mill was all they had to grind it with, and Christmas dinner had to wait until May, when supplies finally got through.