Walnut Grove, MN

Walnut Grove is a Redwood County city of 751 people at the 2020 census, formerly known as Walnut Station. It sits on Plum Creek along U.S. Route 14 between Tracy and Revere, and its best-known local connection is the Laura Ingalls Wilder story: Wilder's family arrived in spring 1874 and settled beside Plum Creek just outside town. The Laura Ingalls Wilder Museum began with a local committee formed in 1974 and marked its 50th anniversary in 2024, so that family story has been part of the town's organized local life for decades.

Walnut Grove also carries a harder 19th-century history. The 1862 violence at Lake Shetek became known as Slaughter Slough, and survivor Henry W. Smith made his way to Walnut Grove to warn the village. In the late 1990s, the Westbrook Wildcats and Walnut Grove Loggers combined their school districts and sports teams as the Westbrook-Walnut Grove Chargers. The local scoop is a small Plum Creek town where the museum draws on a famous family story, while the lake, highway, and school merger keep the wider Redwood County history close at hand.