The Laura Ingalls Wilder Historic Highway is a named road connecting historic areas that relate to the life of author Laura Ingalls Wilder, best known for writing Little House on the Prairie. The highway was first designated in 1995 as U.S. Route 14 from Lake Benton in southwest Minnesota to Mankato in the south-central part of the state. Since then, it has been extended into South Dakota, Iowa, and Wisconsin.
Within Minnesota, the highway is primarily made up of US 14 from the South Dakota border eastward to Rochester at U.S. Route 63. A branch extends north on 63 to Lake City, Minnesota where it briefly runs along U.S. Route 61 before following Minnesota State Highway 60 to the Wisconsin border. From Rochester, the highway also runs south along US 63 until the intersection with Minnesota State Highway 16 near Spring Valley. From there, it turns east until meeting U.S. Route 52 near Preston, following that road to the Iowa border.
Famous quotes containing the words laura, wilder, historic and/or highway:
“The books may say that nine-month-olds crawl, say their first words, and are afraid of strangers. Your exuberantly concrete and special nine-month-old hasn’t read them. She may be walking already, not saying a word and smiling gleefully at every stranger she sees. . . . You can support her best by helping her learn what she’s trying to learn, not what the books say a typical child ought to be learning.”
—Amy Laura Dombro (20th century)
“He’s leaving Germany by special request of the Nazi government. First he sends a dispatch about Danzig and how 10,000 German tourists are pouring into the city every day with butterfly nets in their hands and submachine guns in their knapsacks. They warn him right then. What does he do next? Goes to a reception at von Ribbentropf’s and keeps yelling for gefilte fish!”
—Billy Wilder (b. 1906)
“Never is a historic deed already completed when it is done but always only when it is handed down to posterity. What we call “history” by no means represents the sum total of all significant deeds.... World history ... only comprises that tiny lighted sector which chanced to be placed in the spotlight by poetic or scholarly depictions.”
—Stefan Zweig (18811942)
“The highway presents an interesting study of American roadside advertising. There are signs that turn like windmills; startling signs that resemble crashed airplanes; signs with glass lettering which blaze forth at night when automobile headlight beams strike them; flashing neon signs; signs painted with professional touch; signs crudely lettered and misspelled.... They extol the virtues of ice creams, shoe creams, cold creams;...”
—For the State of Florida, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)