MINNEAPOLIS — Residents of Walnut Grove, a small town in southwestern Minnesota famous for being home to pioneer girl Laura Ingalls Wilder, say they’re thrilled their community will once again be in the spotlight.

Netflix released a trailer Monday for its reimagined version of “Little House on the Prairie,” the beloved children’s book and television series.

“We’re all really excited to see a new adaption and a new group of fans that it will bring in,” said Adisyn Erdman, director of the Laura Ingalls Wilder Museum in Walnut Grove.

Producers and staff from the TV series recently visited Walnut Grove, seeking to make the show more historically accurate, said staff at the museum, which draws about 10,000 visitors each year.

“They were looking to get a more authentic view of the town,” said Julien Nolan, curator at the museum, which provided show staff with maps and newspaper clippings.

A representative from the production company, who declined to speak on the record, confirmed the visit by the executive producers and the art department before the second season production.

Netflix’s “Little House on the Prairie” show will premiere July 9 and has already been renewed for a second season.

The show will feature a “hopeful spirit and emotional authenticity” as part of a trend of “feel-good, heartland-rooted comfort programming” on Netflix, a marketing email from the company read.

Alice Halsey of “Lessons in Chemistry” will star as the strong-willed Laura Ingalls Wilder, and Rebecca Sonnenshine of “The Boys” and “The Vampire Diaries” is the showrunner.

Netflix says its adaptation is based on the books by Laura Ingalls Wilder, who lived in Walnut Grove. She wrote about the experience in her fourth book in the series, “On the Banks of Plum Creek.”

The book didn’t mention Walnut Grove by name, but researchers were able to determine that the dugout outside town was where Wilder and her family lived in the 1870s.

NBC’s popular “Little House on the Prairie” series of the 1970s and ’80s leaned in to the Walnut Grove setting, establishing the Ingalls family there for much longer than was historically accurate.

Netflix staff seemed to want to be more “historically accurate,” said Dan Peterson, a Walnut Grove historian who gave a presentation on the town.

“I just wanted to give them a sense of what Walnut Grove was actually like,” Peterson said.

Peterson said he wanted the Netflix crew to understand how important the railroad was to the town, and that none of the homes in Walnut Grove were built of brick at the time.

“I think it’s going to be a nice kick for the next generation of fans,” Peterson said. “Hopefully, it will keep bringing people to Walnut Grove.”

The 1970s TV show transformed Walnut Grove, a town of about 700 that still attracts thousands of fans dressed in bonnets and petticoats in summer.

One of those fans, Linda Thom, who traveled to Walnut Grove in period-accurate garb in 2024, watched the trailer and said she’s looking forward to the series. Thom, who lives in Wichita, Kansas, said she was intrigued by a line in the trailer about a family being happy because they were together.

“I think that is so important, especially right now with the world we live in, where everything is so wild and busy,” Thom said. “It’s nice to see a show like this that appears to be promoting the importance of family.”

The 1970s “Little House” show filled a niche, selling a portrayal of old-time values during a time of great social upheaval, Nolan said.

After seeing the trailer, he’s interested in whether Netflix’s new show will also capture an audience looking for escapism in stressful times.

“With how quickly technology is advancing, to have a connection with the past will really resonate,” he said.

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