Laura Ingalls Wilder Historic Home & Museum — Attraction in Ava

We had a very good time visiting the Laura Ingalls Wilder homestead on 9/30/22 in Mansfield, MO. The experience was very much worth the drive if you are a fan of the Little House tv show or the Little House books or pioneer history in general. Laura and Almanzo arrived at Mansfield when she was 27 and lived there for 63 years until Laura was the last to pass away at the age of 90 in 1957. Laura wrote all nine "Little House" books on the property starting at age 65.

Driving east through Mansfield on Highway A roughly two miles past downtown, there are basically 3 entrances to the Ingalls property on the right (south) side. The first stop is for the museum/gift shop and where you have to purchase the tickets.

The tickets allow you to tour both the main farmhouse (2nd entrance) and the Rock House (3rd entrance roughly a mile east of the first museum entrance). There are different tour times for the two houses so you need to figure out your time plan after you get your tickets and the tour schedule so you can make sure to see everything.

One plan would be to buy your tickets at the museum, see the short home movie next to the ticket booth, then walk up the short hill to the Farmhouse for a tour (check times!), walk back to the car and drive the mile down the road to the entrance to the Rock House for that tour (check times!). Instead of driving the mile down to the Rock House, you could cut through and walk the paved path in the woods that connects the Farmhouse and the Rock House, but it is about a 3/4 mile long trail and has some significant inclines up & down. The benefit is that you are walking the same trail that Laura and Almanzo walked between the two houses. After the two home tours, make sure to go back to the museum and the gift shop - the museum was very interesting!

If you are leaving by driving back west towards downtown, on your right (north) will be Lincoln St. At the end of that street is the town cemetery and they have marked the grave site of Laura, Almanzo, and Rose so that you can easily pay...

Farm fresh eggs right from the coop at the house museum! how great is that! They sell their eggs in their gift shop rekindling the love that Laura Ingalls Wilder had for her flock on this same property! The Rock Cottage and main museum house were a delight to see in person. The tour guide in the main house clearly loved and cherished everything about Laura and Rose. We arrived late in the day and had to whisk through to see everything but enjoyed our visit. I had cherished these stories as a young married girl and raised my two children on the stories and the TV series. The actual museum building holds so much memorabilia and actual personal possessions of Laura, Almonzo and the Ingalls family it was remarkable to see! Our visit has inspired me to re-read all the stories again-- now in my late 60s! NOTE_ I would like to say that if traveling with an RV their parking lots are not too RV friendly. They do have bus parking down the road a bit on the left which may be ok, though it would not have worked for our 60+ft combined length well. We camped one night at the RV park across the street instead. Cost to get into this private museum is a little on the steep side (just under $36 for the two of us), they do offer a Veteran discount which helped for one of us, but no Senior discounts. That being said, I used to work for a museum and know that costs to maintain such buildings and collection is costly and so we gladly supported their preservation of these treasures. If you love the Little House series....as much as I do, it is worth the...

I gave this a 5 star because I just love everything and anything about Laura Ingalls and her family. Pros... The museum was very nice and I learned so much more about her and loved seeing items that she made or wore. The two houses that they lived in were pretty neat to see and be able to walk through. Just to walk the same floors and steps that she did was pretty awesome. Cons... When you arrive, stop by the museum to purchase your tickets. The museum has moved and if you park at the house where the museum originally was, you will have to walk a bit to get your tickets then back again. The houses are self guided. You will be given a pamphlet of information about each house and rooms. The people guides are very knowledgeable and it's a shame that they can't give a guided tour with notes about the houses. You learn so much more from them than the pamphlet and the houses are small enough that it wouldn't take too long. The trail separating the two houses is a very nice 15 minute walk and at times hilly. Someone that isn't use to walking or has health problems would find it very laborious and difficult. My sister could not make it and had to wait for me at the museum. On our way home, going in the opposite direction we saw a driveway that took us to the stone house. She would have missed seeing the stone house had we not gone a different way home. This could've and should've been mentioned at the museum. Otherwise this was a great experience that I would do again! I love Laura...