10/12/2026
Cap Garland—Friend of Laura Ingalls Wilder and Hero of De Smet, South Dakota
Cap Garland is perhaps best known as a friend of Laura Ingalls Wilder and for his heroic acts to save the town of De Smet, Dakota Territory from starvation in the book “The Long Winter” by Laura Ingalls Wilder. He went approximately 20 miles to find wheat in freezing conditions when the snow prevented trains from bringing supplies to the newly formed prairie town for an extended period of time.
Cap’s real name was Oscar Edmund Garland. He was born on December 27, 1864 in Avoca, Iowa County, Wisconsin. His parents were Walter Bell Garland and Margaret Frances (Pettit) Garland. He was the youngest sibling in the family which included Walter M. (born and died in 1855), Lovenia (1856-1942), Josephine (1859-1863), and Florence Adelia (1862-1935). Florence was the schoolteacher in “The Long Winter”. The family was living in De Smet in 1880 in a new house a street over from where Laura’s family was living during that winter.
Cap was described as having a dashing smile, white-blonde hair, and pale blue eyes. He was just over 2 years older than Laura. Laura first met Cap on her first day at school in De Smet. She was walking up to the school and saw some boys playing ball. One of the boys threw the ball to her. It was Cap Garland! He was described as the strongest and quickest boy at the school and always possessed a good-natured disposition. In those times, girls were not supposed to play ball and typically did not play rough sports with the boys at school. Cap reckoned Laura was as good as any of the boys at playing ball after she caught it unexpectedly. He continued to encourage Laura and some of her girlfriends to play with him and his mates during recess at school that year when the weather allowed it to be in session. Later on in the book, Cap is noted to be “lighthearted and merry” but that he would “fight his weight in wildcats”. It was said that when Cap had reason to lose his temper, “his eyes narrowed and glittered with a look that no man cared to stand up to” and that he had been known to “make the toughest railroader back down”.
De Smet in present-day South Dakota was first settled in the year 1879 by railroad workers and homesteaders including Charles and Caroline Ingalls and their daughters, Mary, Laura, Carrie, and Grace. The following year, winter started early with a sudden blizzard in early October. The winter brought many prolonged and harsh blizzards and lasted for seven months by the time spring finally came in May. The town ran out of supplies since the trains were unable to reach it due to the amounts of snow that kept burying the tracks. Laura’s family and others were forced to grind wheat in a coffee mill to make bread to subsist on and to twist hay from the prairie to burn for warmth. They eventually ran out of their supply of wheat as did most of the others in the town in February. The train wasn’t expected to come until Spring. Townsfolk had heard tell that there was a homesteader about 20 miles southwest of town who had raised some wheat the year before. It was only a rumor but the townspeople were desperate and starving. Soon, a plan was hatched by Cap Garland and Almanzo Wilder (who would later become Laura’s husband) to go in search of the homesteader and his wheat in hopes of saving the town from starvation. Daniel H. Loftus, a general store owner, gave them $80 to purchase the wheat if they could find it.
The last week of February, the two young men made further plans and volunteered to go after the wheat though it seemed like a wild goose chase. The scheme was concocted to venture on a single day in between blizzards for if they were caught on the open prairie in the middle of a storm they were bound to freeze to death. The pair took their strongest horses and their sleds. They set out one morning when the sky was still dark and the temperature below zero. The trip was not easy riding as the snow had formed a hard crust over softer snow and hidden slough grasses. The horses and sleds would often break through and get stuck forcing the men to have to dig the horses out of the holes and haul their sleds around them. The cold air bit at their faces, hands, and feet threatening frostbite with each passing minute. Determined, Almanzo and Cap kept moving. With very few landmarks on the wide-open prairie, they didn’t know if they were heading in the right direction for no one knew where the mysterious homesteader lived or if there was even a man with wheat to find. They were mostly silent but occasionally called out in a carefree banter back and forth. After what seemed like fruitless hours, they glimpsed a bit of smoke in the distance and knew they had spotted a homesteader’s claim shanty. Afternoon shadows were beginning to creep along the prairie but they had found their destination!
They came upon Niels Anderson Kopperud (known as Mr. Anderson in the books) who was eager to see some fellow human beings as he had been weathering the long winter by his lonesome at the claim. Anderson was described in the novel as having long hair and a beard growing up to his cheekbones. He invited the men in for a bite to eat and soon they got down to business. Anderson was very reluctant to sell the precious seed wheat he was holding onto for the following season’s crop. He made it clear that it was not his problem that the town of De Smet was next to starving and without supplies. Wilder and Garland offered the full elevator price of 82 cents per bushel and reasoned that Anderson wasn’t guaranteed to grow a crop and this way he was guaranteed cash and wouldn’t have to haul the wheat to town to boot. Anderson still insisted that he had no wheat to sell. They upped their price to $1.00 per bushel. With some tough negotiation, the two young men finally convinced Anderson to sell about 60 bushels of wheat at $1.25 per bushel (equivalent to about $2,460 in today’s US currency). Mr. Anderson couldn’t resist when he saw the cash laid on his table. Anderson urged the men to stay all night but they knew they were already on borrowed time before another blizzard was apt to strike. They bagged up the wheat and loaded it onto their sleds and raced back toward De Smet just in time before another multi-day blizzard blew through the region. Meanwhile, the townsfolk had been eagerly waiting with baited breath wondering if the men had found the wheat and if they would make it back home.
When they arrived back in town, Loftus said “So you boys made it. We figured you hadn’t.” To which Almanzo replied “Cap and I figure we’ll do what we set out to do.” The wheat was handed over to Mr. Loftus to sell in his store. Loftus gazed at the receipt from the transaction and was dumbfounded by the price that they paid for the wheat. “That’s the best you could do?” he asked Almanzo. When he asked what the men wanted for hauling the wheat, neither would take any money from him. Mr. Loftus then turned around and tried to charge an inflated price of $3.00 a bushel to the hungry townsfolk. He was still out to make a profit on the wheat. Charles Ingalls, Almanzo, Cap, and other townsfolk confronted Loftus. Cap and Almanzo insisted that they hadn’t risked their lives so the storekeeper could price gouge their starving neighbors. Cap wore “the look that had made the railroader back down” and said to Loftus “Don’t offer us any of your filthy cash. Wilder and I didn’t make that trip to skin a profit off folks that are hungry.” Almanzo said “Get it through your head if you can, there’s not money enough in the mint to pay for that trip. We didn’t make it for you and you can’t pay us for it.” Mr. Ingalls reasoned with Loftus that if he wouldn’t sell for a decent price, the townsfolk would likely take their business to the other store in town when supplies came in in the Spring and that Loftus would surely suffer. Loftus hastily agreed to reduce the price to what he had paid for it at $1.25/bushel. The wheat was portioned out according to the supplies families already had and by family size. The town of De Smet was provided enough grain to grind into flour for provisions to survive until the spring thaw finally allowed trains to run again in early May 1881. The town was saved due to the heroic actions of two young men.
The vivacious Cap sadly went on to lose his life at a young age in a threshing machine accident at Badger Township in Davison County, SD on November 3, 1891. He was only 26 years old. He was laid to rest in the Collins Cemetery at Willow Lake, Clark County, SD. His tombstone has a sphere mounted on it to symbolize the continuous cycle of life, eternity, and resurrection of the soul. May Cap Garland rest in eternal peace and be remembered.
Sources:
-Find a Grave: https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/8860/oscar_edmund-garland
-“The Long Winter” by Laura Ingalls Wilder
