Where did the Ingalls family live when they first came to Dakota Territory?
Laura Ingalls Wilder wrote of the Surveyors’ House in her book By the Shores of Silver Lake. The Ingalls family spent the winter of 1879-1880 here. This would be the first home for the Ingalls family when they arrived in Dakota Territory (South Dakota). It was called the Surveyors’ House because the surveyor’s that surveyed (measured) the land for the railroad had built and lived in the house. The surveyors offered it to the Ingalls family for that first winter so that the surveyors could go back east for the winter.
