Little House Travels: Playing in Plum Creek

Nothing will make you jump out of your skin like being there.

On Route 5, the Gordon Farm was the site of the dugout and the frame farmhouse.

There it is!

About where Pa must have parked the wagon and the family wondered where the house was. 

Close-up of the signage.

On the path to the dugout - Little House hallowed ground.

Tucked violets, dandelions, and phlox behind my ear from the dugout.

I wasn’t the only one enjoying the Plum Creek homestead site.

As best I could figure from her diagrams and descriptions, this was where the footbridge was.

Whoops. The eight-year-old in me was delighted, the adult in me was glad I had the foresight to bring a towel from the hotel. All I could think of was the line in the book when Ma laughed when they came in from playing, wet, muddy, with fists full of flowers. 

So I waded to get clean. I, a Little House fan since the age of eight, played in Plum Creek...

...at the location of the footbridge at the base of the dugout. 

I too loved how mud felt.

The spring where they fetched fresh water and the path to the big rock. 

The path up to Tableland. To a young girl, the description made sense, but as an adult, it was just a ridge. Still, she was right about how steep it was to go from one elevation to another.

The Ingalls farm until those pesky grasshoppers ruined it. 

Monday took me east to the towns of Walnut Grove and Tracy, which covers the entirety of the book On the Banks of Plum Creek and the first half of By the Shores of Silver Lake. 

I thought I would need at least a full day in Walnut Grove and maybe part of another day. The reality of these small towns is there's no Little House amusement park, no crazy-themed restaurants, and no throngs of Laurafans waiting 45 minutes in line for a flume ride down Plum Creek.  The people of these small towns acknowledge your crazy and just ask you to pay on the honor system and pick up your trash when you're done. 

I got to town at 9:30 a.m., and since the museum was not yet open, I decided to drive to the dugout. 

Pa and his trouble with distance - the farm site and dugout weren’t three or 12 miles away, just a mile and a half up Route 5. 

The Gordon farm was neat and tidy, and it was clearly marked how to get to the back of the farm to the dugout site and where to pay, in a mailbox with an iron latch. Just take my money!

I worried the land wouldn’t be as magical or my imagination wouldn’t match reality. Instead, the dugout space felt like hallowed ground. The roof had collapsed a hundred years ago so all that was left was a deep depression in the ground. But THIS was IT. I wanted to see morning glories; instead, I got violets, phlox, dandelions, and other prairie flowers. The path was just as she described it, as was the winding creek. PLUM CREEK! THAT’S PLUM CREEK! 

I looked around for more iconic spaces there. Everything felt small as well as large. I tried to remember at the time she was remembering Plum Creek, she was a tiny girl that was only seven, eight years old. Tableland, which I tried to figure out as a kid, was only a ridge where the land rose up; even then, it was a steep climb for me. The big rock had been moved from the field and was now submerged in the creek. It was big, but not as big as she described. I looked for other iconic places described, like the swimming hole and the waterfall where she fished, but they either no longer exist or are in a private space on the property. 

It’s worth mentioning again my country girl party of one with the vanity cakes (donut holes) and a pint of milk. According to Laura’s maps and descriptions and Garth Williams’ illustrations, I was sitting in the exact spot where the footbridge had been. It was pleasant and sweet to be sitting where she lived and played and to be enjoying treats from her long-ago party. 

And play I did. I may have been attempting to be as dainty as Mary in the water and scampering up the creek banks but Minnesota mud is something entirely different, as I slid in the thick, sticky mass into the water and by some miracle, saved my phone from dropping in the drink. I was, however, covered from hip to foot. Thank God I had grabbed a hotel pool towel to clean up and clean off. My shoes were caked and I changed quickly to flip flops, then barefoot. Instead of fussing, I just had to laugh. 

I moved further downstream, where I waded on the partially submerged rock, saw the spring, and stood still to listen to the birds and smell the wildflowers, which she had described as being so sweet. I called my sister while wading in the water “I’m in PLUM CREEK!” I cried. 

I didn’t want to leave, but I had to get into town to tour the museum. 

P.S.: I was puzzled about the size of the big rock not being so big and chalked it up to tall tales by little girls. Then I read this: it’s a really big rock that 150 years of erosion covered. Sorry about the bird poop.