And One More on the Way: Brookings, SD

Here’s another one of our posts about extra places to stop on the way to the conference or on any Laura trip.

Harvey Dunn Street Sign and Museum

Brookings, South Dakota is one of my favorite non-homesite towns along the Laura Ingalls Wilder Historic Highway. It’s on Highway 14 between Walnut Grove and De Smet.  Brookings is right on Highway 14 and well worth skipping the bypass and driving through town. As a tourist, this is the last chance to get those harder to find items. Whether you want film, paper, or lithium batteries – just try to find lithium batteries in De Smet, especially on Sunday morning – get it here while you can.

There are many normal tourist sites, including a gorgeous and large city park, but I recommend two museums on the west side of the South Dakota State University campus (long time professional home of John E. Miller).  First is the South Dakota State Art Museum. The museum was started after a successful show in De Smet convinced Harvey Dunn that there was interest in seeing his paintings where they were created during his summers in Manchester. Dunn was a world famous illustrator and even has his own stamp, but for many years while his wife did the European tour in the summer, Dunn was shut down his studio/art school out East and return to his hometown. Dunn was the nephew of Nate Dow, husband of Grace Ingalls Dow. Dunn gave so many works to the Brookings museum that they rotate them showing a different selection of them that fit a different theme each year. If you think the frequent reprints and postcards are doing Dunn justice, think again and make time to stop in Brookings.  Also, on display is a collection of original artwork by Paul Goble, a non-native picture book writer/illustrator who is famous for doing Native American stories. There is also a terrific if somewhat pricey gift shop.

Just over a block beyond the art museum is the South Dakota Agriculture Museum housed in what was once a show ring when the cattle were a

One Room Exhibit at Ag Museum

larger  and more important part of the class structure. It is exceedingly well done museum. The part about homestead life is excellent and the one-room school display is the best one I’ve seen outside of a one-room school museum. They also have a De Smet tractor which was made in De Smet during the early tractor boom time when everyone and his brother tried to start a tractor company. Theirs is one of the few in existence.

Parking can be a little hard, as on many college campuses, but I usually park in front of the alumni office and walk over to both museums.

Sarah S. Uthoff blogs at TrundleBed Tales; look for her on Twitter and YouTube.