50 free Little House on the Prairie trivia questions with answers — entertainment quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
42 free Little House on the Prairie trivia questions with answers. Little House on the Prairie lives on in reruns, on Peacock, and in a Netflix reboot, and this quiz covers the whole world of it: the NBC series that ran from 1974 to 1983 (Pa, Half Pint, the Olesons, Mary's blindness, the town blowing itself up in the finale), Laura Ingalls Wilder's nine books, and the real family history that both fictionalised. The easy questions are for anyone who watched with their grandmother. The hard ones ask which book was published first, how many actresses auditioned to play Ma, where Walnut Grove was really filmed, what Laura and Almanzo called each other, and why the library award named for Wilder was renamed in 2018. It works for a fan gathering, a classroom, or a family quiz night. Every answer was checked against Wikipedia's articles on the series, the books, the cast and Laura Ingalls Wilder herself, and each question carries its source.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01In the TV series, the Ingalls farm sits on the banks of which stream near Walnut Grove?
Plum Creek
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.
Q 02Who played Charles Ingalls, the family patriarch known as Pa?
Michael Landon
He agreed to direct the pilot only on condition that he could also play Charles, then ended up running the whole show.
Q 03Which actress played Laura Ingalls, beating out more than 500 child actresses for the part?
Melissa Gilbert
She was nine when cast, and Landon nicknamed her "Half Pint" to tell her apart from Melissa Sue Anderson, whom he called "Missy."
Q 04What nickname did the star and producer give the young actress playing Laura on set?
Half Pint
Melissa Sue Anderson, who played Mary, became "Missy" so the two Melissas could be told apart.
Q 05On which network did the series air from 1974 to 1983?
NBC
Landon had an exclusive NBC contract after Bonanza was cancelled; every one of his series ran on the network for 30 straight years.
Q 06Why was the role of little Carrie Ingalls played by twins?
Hollywood work rules limited how long small children could be on set
Lindsay and Sidney Greenbush shared the part; the same rule is why so many TV toddlers are twins.
Q 07What happens to Mary Ingalls at the end of season four?
She goes blind
She is sent to a school for the blind in Iowa, where she meets her future husband, the blind teacher Adam Kendall.
Q 08Which orphan boy do the Ingalls adopt after meeting him in the town of Winoka?
Albert
Matthew Labyorteaux's Albert stayed with the family after they returned from Dakota to Walnut Grove.
Q 09Which family owns the mercantile in Walnut Grove?
The Olesons
Nels was stern and decent, Harriet doting and snobbish, and daughter Nellie became one of TV's great villains.
Q 10Who played Nellie Oleson?
Alison Arngrim
Her memoir is titled Confessions of a Prairie Bitch: How I Survived Nellie Oleson and Learned to Love Being Hated.
Q 11In Laura Ingalls Wilder's books, Nellie Oleson was a composite of how many real girls?
Three
Nellie Owens, Genevieve Masters and Stella Gilbert were all rolled into one blonde tormentor.
Q 12Whom does Nellie eventually marry on the show?
Percival Dalton
He was hired to teach her to cook and run the restaurant, and his patience mellowed her; Steve Tracy played him.
Q 13Which character arrives in season six as the new schoolteacher, bringing along her brother Almanzo?
Eliza Jane Wilder
Laura and Almanzo were engaged by season's end and agreed to wait a year, then married early in the season seven premiere anyway.
Q 21Which producer acquired the Little House rights and hired Landon, only to leave in 1974 after clashing with him?
Ed Friendly
NBC backed Landon, and Friendly ended up a silent partner with a credit on every episode.
Q 22Pa's actor went on to star in which series about an angel on probation, from 1984 to 1989?
Highway to Heaven
He said he created it after bargaining with God when his daughter was in an accident; it ran on NBC from 1984 to 1989.
Q 23The star of the show died in 1991, at age 54, of what illness?
Pancreatic cancer
He announced the diagnosis on The Tonight Show that May, and Melissa Gilbert visited him at his Malibu home before he died.
Q 14After Pa's actor left following season eight, what was the series renamed?
Little House: A New Beginning
The final season centred on Laura and Almanzo, and Charles and Caroline no longer appeared.
Q 15How does the 1984 finale movie The Last Farewell end?
The townspeople blow up their own buildings
Each resident takes a turn dynamiting a building rather than surrender the town, and the sets were really destroyed.
Q 16Where were the exteriors of Walnut Grove and the Ingalls farm actually filmed?
Big Sky Ranch in Simi Valley, California
Old Tucson Studios stood in for the larger town of Mankato.
Q 17How many actresses were auditioned for Caroline Ingalls before Landon chose Karen Grassle?
47
Landon deliberately cast theatre actors with little TV exposure, including Katherine MacGregor and Richard Bull as the Olesons.
Q 18Which earlier Western made the actor who played Pa a star, as Little Joe Cartwright?
Bonanza
He recycled several Bonanza storylines for Little House, and the closing theme first appeared as incidental music in a 1971 Bonanza episode.
Q 19How many colour episodes of the series were produced?
204
David Rose scored the pilot, all of them and the three follow-up movies.
Q 20The pilot movie, first aired March 30, 1974, was based on which of Wilder's books?
Little House on the Prairie, the third book
That book covers the family's year in Kansas; the series proper then jumped to the Plum Creek setting.
Q 24Melissa Sue Anderson got a 1978 Emmy nomination as Mary and won the next year for what?
An ABC Afterschool Special
Which Mother Is Mine? aired in 1979; Anderson later became a Canadian citizen.
Q 25Which of Wilder's books was published first, in 1932?
In the Big Woods
It is set near Pepin, Wisconsin, where a replica log cabin now marks Laura's birthplace.
Q 26The 1933 book Farmer Boy is about the boyhood of which character?
Almanzo Wilder
It follows Laura's future husband on his family's New York farm from before his ninth birthday to after his tenth.
Q 27The novel Little House on the Prairie is set in which state, where the family squatted on Osage land?
Kansas
The cabin stood near modern Independence; the family had no legal right to be there and left after about a year.
Q 28What breed of dog was Jack, the family pet in the early books?
Bulldog
His death on the day Pa leaves in By the Shores of Silver Lake is one of the series' saddest moments.
Q 29How many of the Little House books were Newbery Honor Books?
Five
None won the medal outright; the ALA later created a lifetime achievement award named for Wilder, with her as first recipient.
Q 30Whose illustrations replaced the originals when the books were reissued in a uniform edition in 1953?
Garth Williams
Williams, who also drew Charlotte's Web, visited the real Ingalls sites before drawing them.