Cheryl Landon might be amused, or mortified, if she knew how her visit to Cedar Ranch in Delhi Township is recorded in history.

A sign inside the outhouse reads: "Cheryl Landon sat here, July 11, 2 p.m., 1977, Michael Landon's daughter."

Landon visited the ranch during an excursion to the Laura Ingalls Wilder Museum. Wilders' books served as a basis for the "Little House on the Prairie" television series starring Landon's father.

Thousands of visitors sat on the thrown before Landon's visit and thousands more since, although the ranch is a fairly well-kept secret outside of Redwood County, said owner Bob Starr.

The same goes for a nearby former gold mine, a spring-fed lake and Zimmerli Township Park. State maps fail to show these sights, and no tourist markers point the way.

Although Starr advertises in the Minnesota Trail Ride Association magazine, most visitors find him by word of mouth, either for tours of the area, barbecue parties at the ranch, overnight stays in the ranch house, or camping on ranch grounds.

"You don't want the whole world to come to your door," the 82-year-old tour guide and former farmer said. "Then, you'd have to hire extra help."

Yet Starr has hosted everyone from boy scouts and American Indians, to coon hunters and visitors from abroad. He also is known for taking friends, and their friends, on informal tours.

"Every foreign exchange student comes to my place," Starr said. "Anybody that gets company, they bring them out."

Ramona Larson of Redwood Falls has taken only informal tours with Starr, but she said she thinks the world of them for their color and personality.

"It's the land and the history, and the need to understand our connection to the land that he's really trying to get across," Larson said. "And he does it in such a non-threatening, come-if-you-can way. He's very warm hearted. He's the kind of person who takes people under his wing."

The ranch, nestled among rocky hills and forests, once spanned 560 acres. Some years ago Starr sold 500 of the acres to the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources.

Ranch house accommodations are rustic. Five beds fill an upstairs bedroom. Downstairs, a wood stove heats a large living room; a small kitchen sits off to the side.

Even people who stay overnight in the ranch house pack for camping because Starr leaves little of value in the house.

"If you have something too good, then the temptation is there," Starr said.

While giving a tour a few years ago to a group from Bird Island, someone confessed that many years ago she walked off with two of his water glasses, Starr said.

"You'll find that people who steal something, 15, 20 years later it's wearing on their conscience, and by god, they want to clear their conscience," Starr said.

The infamous outhouse is a short stroll from the house, as are hydrants, the only source of water.

Five quarter horses that graze in the pasture are available to party groups and overnight guests for trail rides, but only under Starr's strict supervision. Many overnight guests bring their own steeds, Starr said.

Starr recently hosted a class reunion and was tipped $30 by the organizer, now a Florida resident, because of an incident 24 years prior. Starr said he caught the man and some of his teenage friends holding an impromptu party at the ranch.

"One of the guys was so scared, he jumped out of the second-story window," Starr recalled.

Instead of calling the sheriff, Starr took the group on a tour of the area and on a sleigh ride.

Starr put together his first student tour in the 1940s. He estimates more than 30,000 people -- about 10,000 of them students -- have hired him as a guide. Some groups come more than once.

"It isn't me, it's what there is to see," Starr said. "If you wanted to find them yourself, you'd waste a hell of a lot of time."

Although Starr has taken tour groups as far away as Ortonville and St. Peter, he often concentrates on the immediate area, including Zimmerli Park, which sits along the Minnesota River at the end of a gravel township road. An engraved granite stone sits in the park in memory of a member of the Zimmerli family, who donated the park land.

To get to the park, visitors must cross over the Minnesota River on an old bridge with a wood floor, drive through the shallow Cedar Creek and pass Gold Mine Lake, which is surrounded by trees and tall grasses save for one sandy spot used by swimmers.

Starr remembers nights in the 1930s when it was so hot people slept outdoors. On those days, the gravel road was blocked for miles with cars of swimmers seeking relief at the lake, he said.

"It was the only place you could cool off back in the '30s in the drought and the heat," Starr said.

The advent of air conditioning and swimming pools diminished some of the lake's popularity, though some people still swim there, he said.

As the gravel road winds around the lake, its passage narrows next to a tall, craggy hill. One footpath leads to the hilltop and stunning views of the lake, another leads to an abandoned gold mine, worked in the late 1890s. Some of the slag still cascades down the hill.

The closed mine shaft travels 120 feet down and 60 feet out under the lake, Starr said. The venture failed after two nonconsecutive years of mining. The gold was appraised about a decade ago at $95 a ton.

"It might cost you $150 (per ton) to get it out," Starr said.

Zimmerli Park sits just around the hill from the gold mine.

On one recent rainy Saturday Starr found some campers from St. Paul in the park, who had heard about it from friends in the area. Finding people in the park from outside the region is rare, Starr said.

Starr helps mow and clean the park as a volunteer, and inadvertently helps serve as security. The park is free for anyone to use, with only a few restrictions, he said.

"Campers can drink some beer down there, but if they drink it in bottles, I might come up and slap their rump because we don't like bottles down there," Starr said.