DE SMET, S.D. – Hundreds of thousands of tourists every year frequent sites tied to South Dakota’s pioneer and Wild West history, and cemeteries are among the historic sites that bring the past to life for those visitors.
Jim Hagen, South Dakota Tourism secretary, said history lovers are one of the department’s main audiences. “Whether it’s Native American history and culture, pioneer, Old West … interest in South Dakota history but American history too. We have a ton of that in the state.”
A prime example is the Ingalls Homestead in De Smet, the setting for much of the “Little House on the Prairie” book series by Laura Ingalls Wilder. The series has been translated into dozens of languages and is the basis of a still-popular television series from the 1970s and 1980s. Hagen said no matter where he travels in the world, he sees an enduring interest in the stories of Ingalls Wilder.
“To take that pioneer history and to be able to share that in a marketing aspect to visitors to say, ‘Did you know that you can come and walk in Laura’s footsteps and experience this at the Ingalls Homestead? Or go into the city of De Smet and go through Ma and Pa’s house, and go through the museum, and see where they lived, and see where they’re buried?’ I mean, that’s huge.”