De Smet Forest, a half mile southeast of De Smet, was established by the South Dakota Fish, Game and Parks Department in 1946 as one of many small roadside parks along South Dakota highways. De Smet, a half mile northwest, was established in 1880 and named for Father Peter J. DeSmet, S.J., a missionary who first visited South Dakota in 1840. It was the “Little Town on the Prairie” of Laura Ingalls Wilder’s stories of pioneering, with four set there, and it was the birthplace of Rose Wilder Lane, whose novels depicted pioneering in the area. The Ingalls Homestead was one-half mile south of this spot. Harvey Dunn, N.A., noted illustrator known for paintings of prairie settlers and Western subjects, was born 9 miles west, 3 miles south, and 3/4 mile east of this spot. At Lake Thompson, then called Big Dry Wood Lake, on June 29, 1857, a group of half breeds and braves from Yellow Medicine Agency, Minn., caught up with Inkpaduta, a Sioux renegade, and in battle at the south end of the lake, 9 miles south and 2 miles east, killed 3 of his band, including his son Mah pi ya peta (Fire Cloud).