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Tracy Mumford

Little House on the Dairy: Laura Ingalls Wilder getting a butter sculpture

Laura Ingalls Wilder
Laura Ingalls Wilder on the porch of her house in Mansfield, Mo., in the early 1900s.
Courtesy of Herbert Hoover Presidential Library

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Laura Ingalls Wilder may already have a highway named after her, but she's about to get the real Midwest royalty treatment: Her likeness in butter.

According to The Des Moines Register, the 2017 Iowa State Fair will feature a butter statue of Wilder, alongside the fair's traditional butter cow (and the Solheim Cup golf trophy, made of butter, for good measure).

The buttering up of Wilder will celebrate the author's 150th birthday.

Wilder and her family spent a few years in Iowa during their Midwest wanderings. Wilder's father, Charles Ingalls, helped manage a hotel in the town of Burr Oak. The hotel has since been converted to The Laura Ingalls Wilder Park and Museum.

The Laura Ingalls Wilder Park and Museum
The Master Hotel, where the Ingalls family lived for a time, has been converted into the Laura Ingalls Wilder Park and Museum in Burr Oak, Iowa.
Jonathunder | Creative Commons via Wikipedia

The Iowa State Fair has a history of pop culture dairy tributes, with previous sculptures including Elvis Presley, Captain Kirk and Harry Potter. Butter sculptor Sarah Pratt will be behind the knife for this year's Wilder tribute.

According to The Register, the trio of butter sculptures will be on view at the fair from Aug. 10 to 20, in the John Deere Agriculture Building.