What Happened to the Little House From ‘Little House on the Prairie’?

On Little House on the Prairie‘s famous final episode, the people of Walnut Grove decide to destroy their town rather than hand it over to a money-hungry businessman. The townsfolk blow up nearly every building — except the church and the Little House itself, which still stands on the edge of town long after the businesses and the Wilders’ boarding house have been blown to smithereens. Famously, series star and creator Michael Landon destroyed the sets so that they couldn’t be used to shoot future shows or films that didn’t meet Little House‘s standards. But according to a recent interview in Entertainment Weekly with star Melissa Gilbert, the Little House wasn’t just spared symbolically — it’s actually still around, in the home of one of the show’s former stars.

Gilbert described Little House‘s sets as “sacred,” and called the experience of filming the final episode “gutting,” recalling, “For me personally, that whole experience from reading the script [of the final episode] until the last day was the longest funeral I’d ever attended.”