The Surveyors' House, the oldest building in De Smet, was built around 1879 as a railroad company house, a year before there was even a town. Laura Ingalls Wilder lived there with the Ingalls family during their first winter on the Dakota prairies after the family moved in on December 1, 1879, and she later wrote about many experiences of that winter in By the Shores of Silver Lake and in her Little House books. The house originally stood on the north shore of Silver Lake until it was moved into town in 1884. Over the years many different families lived there, and no major changes were made until 1945, when the exterior was sided, a basement was added, and running water and indoor plumbing were installed, with steps and an entry later added to the basement. In 1967, the Laura Ingalls Wilder Memorial Society purchased the home and began restoring it with local groups so that it soon looked as it had in 1879, and it opened the following year to visitors interested in Laura Ingalls Wilder's childhood home, where the house had also often served as a hotel for homesteaders coming through the area during that first winter.