Karl Swenson, the actor who played the towns founder Lars Hanson, died of a heart attack eight days before this episode aired. At the end of this episode, there is a voice-over from Laura mentioning that Lars Hanson died four months later (which was likely related to the stroke Hanson had while the Ingalls were in Winoka). The episode, with Hanson dying, was completed prior to Swenson's death, so the voice-over of Hanson's death is purely coincidental.
This episode had a run time longer than the usual one hour, without being a separate "made for TV movie." The HD Blu-ray release uses the full uncut episode as originally broadcast rather than the edited version for re-runs.
"Keep the Horseshoe Hung Over the Door", which the children sing to the departing families was written by Joseph Skelly and first published in 1880. In "By the Shores of Silver Lake", Laura Ingalls Wilder recalled her father singing it to the family after they had moved there.