Fans from across the country gather for 'Little House' stars reunion on the prairie

WALNUT GROVE, Minn. – The burly and bearded mountain man cut an imposing figure as he walked across the prairie in search of the Hollywood stars visiting this small farming town in southwestern Minnesota.

David Lane wore a wool Stetson hat, a red- and black-checkered flannel shirt, and green suspenders he bought a week ago. The 37-year-old computer technician drove 13 hours from the hills of Jackson, Tenn., his Stetson hat on the entire time, all for a chance at meeting cast members of the "Little House on the Prairie" TV show.

The show, a fictionalized TV adaption of the book series by Laura Ingalls Wilder about the life of a pioneer family in the Midwest, continues to draw in fans around the world, even half a century after its premiere in 1974.

Lane is one of an estimated 2,500 fans dressed in bonnets and petticoats this weekend in Walnut Grove, a town normally numbering about 700 souls that has been transformed by the show's popularity over the past 50 years. He said he wanted to meet actors from the show while dressed like Mr. Edwards, the gruff Tennessee dirt farmer featured in the TV show. "If I go, I gotta go all in," Lane said of his fashion choices.

Walnut Grove's celebration for the 50th anniversary this weekend includes a cast reunion of 11 actors from the show, a town festival, church dinners, a fish derby, and a contest for girls ages 8 to 14 who look most like the show's main character, Laura Ingalls Wilder, and her rival Nellie Oleson.

Many of the cast members, including actors such as Dean Butler and Alison Arngrim, have been to Walnut Grove many times over the years. Asked why she enjoys coming back so much, Arngrim, who played the antagonistic Nellie Oleson, offered a simple response: "The people, obviously! I'm a big hit here," she said after a meet-and-greet with a long line of adoring fans.

The show continues to make an impact on Walnut Grove, the setting of the show and of the fourth book in the series, "On the Banks of Plum Creek." The book didn't mention Walnut Grove by name, but researchers were able to determine that the dugout outside of town was the same site where Wilder and her family lived in the 1870s.

Kris Gordon Klotzbach's grandparents in 1947 bought the farm that was the site of the Wilder family's home. For a few decades, some schoolteachers who loved the book would come to the farm to visit, and her grandfather would pick them up in his Pontiac and bring them to the creek, Klotzbach said.

Then the "Little House on the Prairie" TV show premiered on NBC in 1974. The show, which would become one of TV's highest-rated scripted shows, mentioned "Walnut Grove" five times in its premiere.

Seemingly overnight, the town changed as thousands of fans of the show arrived in search of Laura Ingalls Wilder. "Grandpa was like, I can't keep driving people out here," Klotzbach recalled.

Even 50 years later, Walnut Grove's Laura Ingalls Wilder Museum averages about 10,000 visitors each year, with about 15% coming from other countries, a statement from the museum said.

Each year, the town stages a pageant with dozens of performers acting out portions of the "Little House on the Prairie" story. Residents here say they've gotten used to fans of the show coming to town each pageant weekend during the summer.

"They'll put on their bonnets, walk around town, and live it up like they're in the time of Laura," said Adam Kletscher, a kindergarten teacher in town.

Kletscher, 40, is also the manager of the campground at Plum Creek County Park, which each year fills up with fans in RVs eager to learn about the days of horse-drawn wagons. The camp has a swimming hole called Lake Laura, and is a stone's throw away from Plum Creek.

Fans buy out the camp's 36 sites quickly each year, Kletscher said. This January, he said he opened up campsites for online booking. In an hour, everything was booked up for cast reunion weekend. In another hour, everything booked up for the summer.

One family at the camp said they've been planning their trip to Walnut Grove for months. Linda Thom, 62, said she's been a fan of the show since she watched it on TV as a teenager. Her daughter Alaina Thom, 30, grew up watching the show with her siblings via DVD box sets.

They drove 10 hours from Wichita, Kan., so they could walk where Laura Ingalls Wilder walked. The pair showed off their period-accurate clothing, the petticoats, underskirts and bodices that take as much as an hour and a half to put on in the morning. They walked through town Friday wearing straw hats, with wicker baskets in the crooks of their elbows.

The idea of a simple rural life on the prairie has always attracted her, Linda Thom said.

Alaina Thom, a pre-K teacher, said she was inspired by the schoolteacher Miss Beadle on the show.

Charlotte Stewart, who played Miss Beadle, said Friday that the fan response over the years has been overwhelming. The appeal of the show, even years afterward, lies in its aura of simple family life, she said.

"We just wish that life was as simple as that show," Stewart said. "It takes us away from all the chaos, and the politics, watching this family where all they want to do is survive and take care of each other."

The TV series occupies a niche that hasn't quite been filled by other shows, said Wendy Sjoblom, event coordinator at the Laura Ingalls Wilder Museum.

"A lot has to do with the morals of the TV show, the faith and family values that people seek in our culture," Sjoblom said. She noted that the show has many fictional elements, which some fans of the show don't know when they come to the museum. For example, Walnut Grove was not blown up, as it was in the TV finale, she said.

David Lane, the burly man who came to Walnut Grove from the mountains of Tennessee, said Friday that the themes of the show were still potent enough after 50 years to win him over.

"I just started watching it ironically," Lane said. "I was humoring my girlfriend, it seems corny and kinda goofy, but the more you watch ... it's pretty good!"