In the fall of 1873, Charles and
Caroline Ingalls sold their little house in the Big Woods of Wisconsin,
the log cabin where their two oldest daughters had been born, for a
thousand dollars. Perhaps they were struggling to pay back debts;
perhaps it was simply an offer too good to refuse. Years later, Laura
Ingalls Wilder would attribute the decision to the disappearance of game
and her father’s distaste for the crowds piling into Wisconsin, where
the population had swelled to more than a million. Charles Ingalls never
seemed to realize that his ambition for a profitable farm was
irreconcilable with a love of untrammeled and unpopulated wilderness.
Whatever the motivation, selling a comfortable, established home with
plowed fields and a productive garden was a leap into the unknown. It
would be repaid with disaster and heartbreak.
In February 1874, the Ingallses headed west in their wagon across the
frozen Mississippi River into Minnesota. Charles found a property on
Plum Creek, a tributary of the Cottonwood River, and in June he filed a
claim on 172 acres. To get title to the land, he would have to stay at
least six months, establish a residence, and eventually pay $2.50 an
acre—twice the price for ordinary public land, because this property was
near the railroad. The land was two miles north of a
not-yet-incorporated town, then known as Walnut Station, and later
renamed Walnut Grove for its black walnut trees. ... [mehr] http://lithub.com/laura-ingalls-wilder-and-the-greatest-natural-disaster-in-american-history/
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