Audiences celebrate 50 years of 'Little House on the Prairie'

More than 2,500 people came to the town of Walnut Grove - the setting of "Little House on the Prairie" - to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the film's release.

According to StarTribune , the celebration was held over the weekend of July 19-21 at Walnut Grove City Park and Museum in southwestern Minnesota. The program included a reunion of 11 cast members, a festival, a church dinner, a fishing contest and a beauty pageant for girls aged eight to 14 - to find the person who looked like the main characters Laura Ingalls Wilder and Nellie Oleson Dalton - the children of Harriet and Nels Oleson, who often bullied Laura.

David Lane, one of the thousands of participants, said he drove 13 hours from Jackson, Tennessee, just to meet the artists. Lane said the work has a familiar theme, promoting human strength and faith in life through the image of the Ingalls family. "The more you look at it, the more interesting it becomes," Lane said.

He attended the festival wearing a wool hat, a red and black plaid flannel shirt and green suspenders, a style that resembled the character Isaiah Edwards (played by Victor French) - an alcoholic who behaved rudely due to many tragedies, but treated the Ingalls family well.

Linda Thom, 62, has loved the show since she was a teenager and dreamed of a simpler life on the prairie. The Thom family drove 10 hours from Wichita, Kansas, spending more than an hour dressing up in late 1800s period costumes, complete with straw hats and wicker baskets.

Linda's daughter, Alaina, 30, often watched the series with her siblings on DVD, and was inspired by the teacher character Eva Beadle (played by Charlotte Stewart). When she grew up, Alaina became a kindergarten teacher.

While her mother waited in line for an autograph from Dean Butler (who played Almanzo Wlider, husband of Laura Ingalls Wilder), Danea Jackson, 12, of Wilton, Iowa, played a game called “graces” at the festival. One person would throw a ring into the air for the other to catch with two wooden sticks. The winner was the first person to catch the ring ten times. Photo: StarTribune

The movie’s appeal has helped Walnut Grove develop tourism. Five decades after the film’s release, the Laura Ingalls Wilder Museum says it receives an average of 10,000 visitors a year, about 15 percent of whom are from outside the country. The town hosts an annual beauty pageant, with dozens of performers reenacting excerpts from the film.

Wendy Sjoblom, events coordinator at the Laura Ingalls Wilder Museum, said the show has many fictional elements that viewers won't know about when they first visit the museum. For example, Walnut Grove doesn't blow up like it did in the series finale.

Above StarTribune , many said they were used to seeing crowds of tourists come to town on weekends to camp at Plum Creek County Park and learn about the late 1800s, the period the film was based on. "They'd wear hats, walk around town like they were in Laura's time," said Adam Kletscher, a kindergarten teacher in town.

On July 19, actors Dean Butler, Alison Arngrim (as Nellie Oleson), Charlotte Stewart (Eva Beadle), David Friedman (Jason Carter) met and interacted with the audience. Dean Butler and Alison Arngrim said they have been to Walnut Grove many times over the past few years.

According to Stewart, the series impressed many audiences because it brought authenticity. The personalities of each character and their relationships were clearly portrayed, thereby depicting a panoramic picture of an ordinary family in the American countryside. Despite living on the prairie in harsh natural conditions, lacking and difficult, they remained optimistic, loved life and built a happy family.

"I wish life was as simple as in the movie. It takes us away from all the chaos, what the characters want to do is live and take care of each other," Stewart said.

The cast of "Little House on the Prairie" on set. Photo: NBC

Little House on the Prairie aired from 1974 to 1983, winning four Emmy Awards. The film was adapted from the work of the same name based on the true story of author Laura Ingalls Wilder, familiar to many generations of Vietnamese television viewers in 1995-1996. The content is about the simple life of the Ingalls family during the process of reclaiming the town of Walnut Grove, Minnesota, USA, in the late 19th century, with the main character being Laura (played by Melissa Gilbert) - the second daughter in the family.

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