Walnut Grove, MN

Walnut Grove has an enormous gift shop.  It is large and has the feel of a modern store.  I paged through a couple of interesting books.  One of them is Islam and the Discovery of Freedom.  It is an excerpt of a book by Rose Wilder Lane, carefully annotated by Imad-ad-Dean Ahmad.  She argues that there were three attempts to establish freedom as the basis of government: Abraham's community, the early Islamic community under Mohammed, and the American Revolution.  Lane realized that she had made serious errors in her book, so withdrew it rather than rewrite it with corrections.

The other book is The Rediscovered Writings of Rose Wilder Lane.  Although I did not read these books, and do not plan to do it now, I do get a clear impression of a person who views the study of a history as a means of showing that freedom is always more successful than tyranny.  I think the thesis that the Little House books have a political message is clearly true.  I definitely think it is a mistake to see the books as mere propaganda.  If they were, would so many people love them so much?

The Walnut Grove museum seems largely set up for fans of the television show.  The museum consists of two large exhibit buildings, and several reconstructed historical buildings.  The first museum has a room dedicated to the books and a room dedicated to the show.  The "book room" is mostly storyboards with photographs. It was mostly stuff that we have already seen.

The television show room emphasizes articles that were written about the show, and memorabilia from TV show promotions: masks, games, a tea set, and so on.  The actors who have visited Walnut Grove are generally given better coverage than other people.  They have displays about the books the various stars wrote, with signed copies and photographs accompanying them.

The buildings are pretty large and don't have a feeling of authenticity.  For example, they have a replica dugout house, but it is clearly a small building with dirt on it.  It has more an amusement park sense to it.

The second museum building has several exhibits relating to local history, from pioneer days to the 1950's.  The kids enjoyed the fact that they could touch many of the things here, and it seemed designed to interest kids.