The Travel Room

Although Laura did not write about Burr Oak in her book series, she wrote about living in the hotel in an unpublished manuscript called Pioneer Girl. After the curator of the Mansfield, Missouri museum wrote a booklet about Burr Oak, four local people purchased the hotel building. William Anderson wrote The Iowa Story, based on the first booklet about Laura and the Ingalls living in Burr Oak writen by Irene Leitchy the first curator of the Mansfield, MO museum. Old Town in the Green Groves is an historical fiction book written by Cynthia Rylant, based on Luara’s unpublished manuscript, that shares stories from Pioneer Girl.

After experiencing two summers of grasshopper plagues, the Ingalls left Walnut Grove, Minnesota. The Steadmans, friends from Walnut Grove, had asked the Ingalls to work with them in a hotel in Burr Oak. The Ingalls spent the summer near South Troy, Minnesota, with Peter Ingalls and his family. That is where the only son born to Charles and Caroline Ingalls, Charles Frederick, died at the age of nine months. The Ingalls came to Burr Oak in the late fall of 1876. Laura was 9 years old at the time, Mary was 11, Carrie was 6.

Typical wagons traveled 15 miles a day if pulled by horses, 8-10 miles a day by oxen. The wagons held 2-3 trunks of this size. Many of the pioneers walked alongside the wagon.

Next: Travel to Steadman