The Yard and names we gave areas "Playing town"

I would have to ask Dean if this was tied into us playing "towns" as I call it, but there were sections of the yard that represented different things.  This probably was done even before I was old enough to know what was going on.

For example, the Little House was the newspaper office.  The wooden swing that was in front of the tree in front of the Little House was the gas station.  We have a photo of something written on the swing..."Fina". The SW corner of the yard where the Kleins dug out a fort was called Great Kings Hall.  Don't remember the story on that...

We used Iowa town names as well.  I remember Dean had Denison.  I had Jefferson.

Patti ran a cafe in the kitchen and wrote out orders.  Sunnyvale?

Dean was really into reading maps and knowing towns in Iowa.  He can tell this story better...I'm sure it was his idea.  But the yard was divided into different towns.  And for some reason, the towns included Mapleton (Dean's), Denison and Jefferson (mine).