The Laura Ingalls Wilder historic homes preserve sites in De Smet associated with Laura Ingalls Wilder and her family, including the original Surveyors' House, where the Ingalls family spent their first winter in Dakota Territory in 1879–1880 and which Laura later portrayed in By the Shores of Silver Lake; the original first school of De Smet, attended by Laura and Carrie Ingalls in 1880–1881 and recognized from Little Town on the Prairie; a memorial site marking Pa's original homestead claim from 1880–1887, where five cottonwood trees still stand on prairie land that has never been plowed; and the Ingalls Home, built by Charles Ingalls in 1887, the final home of Ma, Pa, and Mary, where the family lived for more than forty years. The site also includes a replica of the Brewster School, recalling Laura's time teaching during the period represented in These Happy Golden Years, and a Discovery Center with activities related to pioneer life.