Little house on the prairie set destroyed

According to Melissa Gilbert (the actor who played Laura Ingalls Wilder), Michael Landon didn’t find out that Little House on the Prairiehad been canceled from the network. He found out from her. For this reason, he was “furious.” He wanted to “blow the whole f*cking thing up.”

Why Michael Landon wanted to blow up the ‘Little House on the Prairie’ set

After Landon learned from Gilbert that Little House on the Prairie was officially canceled, he was irate.

“He was furious that he had never received an official phone call from NBC president Brandon Tartikoff or anyone else at the network, letting him know the fate of the show,” wrote Gilbert in her memoir, Prairie Tale. “He had been on the network since 1959. Perceiving disrespect, Mike’s temper red-lined. He wanted to destroy all the sets—Walnut Grove, everything in Simi Valley.”

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Landon wanted to destroy all the sets as a “f*ck-you” to the network, according to Gilbert.

“He didn’t want to leave anything behind,” wrote Gilbert. “TV and movie sets tend to get recycled over time, and none of us wanted to see Oleson’s Mercantile being used in some other production and have other people tromping through places where many of us had grown up.”

Before the Little House team officially said goodbye to Walnut Grove, they filmed three movies: Look Back to Yesterday, Bless All the Dear Children, and The Last Farewell. During The Last Farewell, everything was blown up. Well, almost everything.

The ‘Little House on the Prairie’ cast’s reactions to their blown up set

On the last day of filming, the Little House cast walked to set together. The day prior, their beloved Walnut Grove had been demolished.

“I had no idea what to expect when we rounded the corner, but I didn’t expect what I saw,” wrote Gilbert. “There was nothing there. All the businesses were gone.”

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Only one structure remained: the church.

“I guess Mike didn’t have the balls to blow up a church,” wrote Gilbert. “But chunks of its wall were missing as a result of shrapnel from the nearby Oleson’s Mercantile and Nellie’s Restaurant.”

The sight made Gilbert and the rest of the cast incredibly emotional.

“I stopped and gazed in shock at the area where the town had stood,” she wrote. “It was small. Just piles of rubble. There was something profound that struck all of us dumb. Seeing this town, albeit a made-for-TV town, reduced to dust made us feel like we had all lost a favorite relative. We were like a family that had gathered at a funeral. Everyone was in shock.”

‘It was the longest good-bye’ 

The crew shot the cast’s reactions to seeing the rubble for the first time. It was an emotional day all around.

“In between takes, we would tell stories, and every conversation triggered a flood of tears,” wrote Gilbert.” One person would tell a story or bring up a memory, start to tear up, and within moments all two hundred of us were crying. Anytime one person cried, all of us cried. And I mean everyone—actors, makeup artists, wardrobe, grips, electricians, wranglers. It was like that all day.”

After a long, extravagant lunch of steak and lobster, Gilbert and the rest of the cast filmed the final shot: “all of us walking out of town from the church as we sang ‘Onward Christian Soldiers.'”

“I would have chosen ‘The Long and Winding Road,’ but John Lennon and Paul McCartney hadn’t written it in the 1800s,” wrote Gilbert.

Most of the sets of Little House on the Prairie no longer exist. But there was one that was replicated only to be tragically lost in a fire. This is what happened to the home of the Ingalls family years after the show ended.

The ‘Little House on the Prairie’ sets were blown up

Sometimes sets get reused for other shows after one ends. But there is a rumor Michael Landon, who played Charles Ingalls, made sure this wouldn’t happen because he was upset about Little House on the Prairie getting canceled.

“He was furious that he had never received an official phone call from NBC president Brandon Tartikoff or anyone else at the network, letting him know the fate of the show,” Melissa Gilbert, who played Laura Ingalls Wilder, revealed in her memoir, Prairie Tale.

“He had been on the network since 1959,” she continued. “Perceiving disrespect, Mike’s temper red-lined. He wanted to destroy all the sets—Walnut Grove, everything in Simi Valley.”

If this is true, he got what he wanted and everything was blown up except for the church. Gilbert shared her reaction to the remaining set.

“I guess Mike didn’t have the balls to blow up a church,” she wrote. “But chunks of its wall were missing as a result of shrapnel from the nearby Oleson’s Mercantile and Nellie’s Restaurant.”

There was a different reason given for the demolished sets at the time

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Landon’s feelings weren’t revealed until later. The New York Times reported in 1984 that Landon claimed NBC leased the land and promised to restore it to its original state once the show was done.

The show ended with a robber-baron buying up the town. The residents decided to destroy their property so he wouldn’t have it.

“I think it makes for a good strong pioneer ending,” Landon said. “It was also a nice catharsis for the cast and crew. There were lots of tears when we finally blew up the town. The actors had all become very attached to their own buildings, so it was very emotional.”

The replica of the home was burned in a fire twice

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So there wasn’t much left of the show’s sets. The replica of the homestead on Little House of the Prairie was lost in a fire on the Big Sky Movie Ranch in Simi Valley in 2003.

“It is a total, devastating loss,” Simi Valley Chamber of Commerce Chief Executive Officer Leigh Nixon said, according to Ventura County Star. “That is one of the things Simi was known for.”

Filming coordinators Don and Debra Early hoped to build replicas of the sets in the future. Sadly, the prairie home was destroyed again in a fire in 2019. The fire was started by lightning starting a brush fire in Ventura County. The storm also extinguished the fire.

“It’s one of the last props, if not the last props from the set,” Ventura County Fire Department spokesman Scott Dettorre said, according to The Sacramento Bee. Sadly, this means there isn’t much left besides the location for the filming of the show.