When 10-year-old Laura Ingalls was working as a waitress and housekeeper at the Masters Hotel in Walnut Grove, Minn., she would curl up on her breaks and devour copies of the New York Ledger, a popular pulp-fiction magazine.
It was a welcome escape from a job she didn't always like. And it may be where she caught the writing bug that would later prompt her, as Laura Ingalls Wilder, to create the "Little House" books, a beloved series that gave a fictionalized account of her life as a girl on the Midwest frontier.
The Masters Hotel, built in the 1870s and turned into a private home more than 100 years ago, was saved from demolition recently when the Laura Ingalls Wilder Museum bought it. The museum plans to restore the hotel as an added attraction to its displays.
"We're very, very excited," said Joel McKinney, the museum's collections manager.
The author's time at the hotel isn't well known, McKinney said, because she didn't write about it in the "Little House" books. But she told the story in "Pioneer Girl," an autobiography she wrote in 1930 that wasn't published until 2014 by the South Dakota Historical Society Press.
Scholars agree that the "Little House" series is fictionalized, McKinney said, but "Pioneer Girl" was thoroughly researched and vetted for accuracy before it was published.
"Pioneer Girl is the real story of Laura Ingalls Wilder's childhood," he said. "It's as accurate as can be."
In the book, McKinney said, Wilder writes about how much she enjoyed reading the Ledger after finishing her hotel chores.
"I think this was her first real introduction to fiction," he said.
Ingalls worked at the hotel from 1877 to 1879, between the ages of 10 and 12. Her family lived in a house behind the hotel.
This year is the 150th anniversary of Wilder's birth, making the acquisition an especially welcome one, McKinney said. And it will offer fans more insight into a little-known chapter in the life of the shy girl who gained lasting literary fame.
John Reinan • 612-673-7402
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