Laura Ingalls Wilder put the city of Walnut Grove on the map with her “Little House on the Prairie” book series.

But the TV show of the same name changed the town of 800 people forever, says Beth Kleven, a long-time member of the cast of the Laura Ingalls Wilder Pageant. “We are a tourist town.”

Kleven says that shortly after the TV show made its debut in 1974, people began showing up in Walnut Grove, believing the show was actually filmed there.

“We had no public restroom, there was no restaurant and we had no shopping,” she said.

All that began to change, especially in 1978. That’s when Jim Merchant wrote a script about Laura Ingalls Wilder’s life for a class at Southwest State University in Marshall. The play was staged that July in the high school gymnasium.

“Thousands of people came, and hot doesn’t begin to describe it,” Kleven recalls.

Because of the interest, the cast and crew decided to hold the event the next year in a natural amphitheater nearby, which sits on the banks of Plum Creek, featured in Wilder’s books and stories.

Now, 32 years later, the Wilder Pageant, as it has become known, continues.

Errol Steffen has been involved in the pageant from the beginning. He has served as the president of the organization for the last 15 years and has played the role of Charles Ingalls, “Pa,” for the past 19 years.

The staging and special effects have grown dramatically in those years. The various stages are rolled out on railroad tracks, and they turn to show different angles depending on the story.

Because of the special effects, the pageant begins at 9 p.m. Some of the effects that make an evening performance more appropriate include a prairie fire that Ma and the girls had to fight.

“That can be pretty spooky on windy nights,” Kleven says of the scene.

Plum Creek is diverted to flow through the set in some scenes also.

Kleven plays the role of “Old Laura” in the pageant. She narrates between scenes and explains what the actors are portraying. The cast ranges in age from 4 years old to 80, and some of the actors are third-generation pageant cast members.

Although the story doesn’t change much, different directors sometimes choose to put new scenes in, or take some out. Kleven says others ask for different costumes, to add more color. All costumes are made by volunteers.