The railroad was a mainstay of the town of De Smet, SD in the later Little House on the Prairie books. The town was dependent on the railroad to bring supplies, and it was because the railway lines were blocked with snow that the residents of De Smet nearly starved during the hard events in The Long Winter.
The De Smet railroad depot is not the current one that Laura and her family knew, as that one burned down inn the early 1900s. The current depot was built in 1905 and is on the National Register of Historic Places.
Passenger train service ended in De Smet in 1960. While you can no longer catch a train in De Smet, the former depot building was donated to the City of De Smet and is now the Depot Museum. It is definitely worth visiting for those who are in De Smet.
