So as fun as it is to speculate what state Mayfield is supposed to take place in, I thought it might be fun to name a few real life towns we've visited, been raised in, or passed through that actually reminds you of Mayfield.
Mayfield isn't exactly a small town. Meaning, you wouldn't have to drive all the way to Crystal falls just to find a barber shop. Mayfield seems to have a little bit of everything, but it's not exactly a city.
For me, I immediately think of Wadsworth, Ohio- which is west of Akron. There's a park, which makes me think of Metzger's Field, an old movie theatre (long closed but the building remains), and the downtown is small and looks a bit like Mayfield's. No high rise office buildings whatsoever.
In the Beaver's day you would have been able to take a taxi in this town, and a bus to other towns and cities.
In addition, it's not too far a drive to farmland territory and various lakes.

Has anyone here grown up in a town that reminds you of Mayfield?

Healdsburg, CA in the 60's

I had a lot of freedom to go where I wanted. I as born in 63 so....

I wish there were still small towns like Mayfield. This country is so full of violence and corruption, it would be nice to live in a safe, friendly place where gangs didn't prey on people and neighbors watched out for each other. Although the town I live in isn't large, it's so crime-ridden now. There are many houses on the market but very few are selling. I think we are going to turn into another Detroit. I'm a teacher and I see, on a daily basis, the behavior and attitudes of the students I teach and how much they've changed since my own children were young. I just cannot tolerate disrespect, but little or nothing is done when a student is disrespectful towards their teachers. Please, if there are some nice towns that are relatively crime free and the temperature is not 100 degrees almost every day in the summertime, let us know. I am nearing retirement age, and by no means old fashioned. I would just like to enjoy living in a place where I don't have to keep looking over my shoulder every time I walk out the door.

I think there are several towns in Vermont, New Hampshire an Upstate NY that are still very nice. Community based places where neighbors do look out for each other. The catch is the winters are harsh. Some towns are quite small with only a post office and sheriff's office along the main drag. Almost more Mayberry than Mayfield in a sense.

Almost more Mayberry than Mayfield in a sense.

Do we know that much about Mayfield?

We know:
Little kids are safe to walk up town by themselves
Kids can stay overnight by themselves
There are only white people
We see police, but not see them chase anybody (low crime)
There is an alligator farm
There does not seem to be any biker gangs
The janitor brings a dog to work with him
They hired a woman principle (very progressive for the time)

What else?

Mayfield was not all white, though mostly. In "Beaver and Chuey", Beaver's
friend, Chuey Varella, was Spanish, and in "The Parking Attendants", a
African-American maid was seen working, in the kitchen of the Langley home.

Mayfield had Metzger's Field, an athletic field.

Mayfield was located near water, Miller's Pond, Friend's Lake and Shadow
Lake.

Mayfield had 3 movie theaters, the Globe, Valencia, and the Olympic.

The Daily Dispatch was the town newspaper.

Surrounding towns are Bell Port, Crystal Falls, ElmsHurst, Hadley City, and
Madison.

I grew up in a suburb of NYC out on Long Island that definitely wasn't like a MAYFIELD. I always assumed it was a real-small all-american town somewhere in the midwest where everyone seems to know everyone else. As I got older and still a fan of the show, realized that not one episode ever has bad weather; rain, snow,etc. It was always sunny and never too cold or too hot. It was then after moving to L.A. that obviously the show being filmed on the Universal lot in the Valley which is where I live now and can truthfully say that the sun's out almost every day of the year. Now I long for a cloudy day once in awhile, but i guess that's why too many have moved here and traffic's a joke!

Mayfield was not all white, though mostly. In "Beaver and Chuey", Beaver's
friend, Chuey Varella, was Spanish, and in "The Parking Attendants", a
African-American maid was seen working, in the kitchen of the Langley home.

Mayfield had Metzger's Field, an athletic field.

Mayfield was located near water, Miller's Pond, Friend's Lake and Shadow
Lake.

Mayfield had 3 movie theaters, the Globe, Valencia, and the Olympic.

The Daily Dispatch was the town newspaper.

Surrounding towns are Bell Port, Crystal Falls, ElmsHurst, Hadley City, and
Madison.

Was Chuey from Mayfield or was he visiting? Maybe I am mixing that episode up with an episode from the Brady Bunch.

Three movie theaters is a lot for a small town.

Does Mayfield produce anything? I wonder what is the draw to the town.

Was Chuey from Mayfield or was he visiting? Maybe I am mixing that episode up with an episode from the Brady Bunch.

Three movie theaters is a lot for a small town.

Does Mayfield produce anything? I wonder what is the draw to the town.

Chuey lived there with his folks.

I don't recall an episode of Brady Bunch that had a visiting Spanish kid.

I grew up in a suburb of NYC out on Long Island that definitely wasn't like a MAYFIELD. I always assumed it was a real-small all-american town somewhere in the midwest where everyone seems to know everyone else. As I got older and still a fan of the show, realized that not one episode ever has bad weather; rain, snow,etc. It was always sunny and never too cold or too hot. It was then after moving to L.A. that obviously the show being filmed on the Universal lot in the Valley which is where I live now and can truthfully say that the sun's out almost every day of the year. Now I long for a cloudy day once in awhile, but i guess that's why too many have moved here and traffic's a joke!

It did indeed rain in Mayfield, which is why there was episodes with all of the kids taking off their rain slickers, Beaver playing in a puddle, Wally and Beaver being bored cooped up in the house so they started reading Tom Sawyer. And there were quite a few episodes where they wore coats/sweaters, including the one where Beaver bought the ugly sweater.

It did indeed rain in Mayfield, which is why there was episodes with all of the kids taking off their rain slickers, Beaver playing in a puddle, Wally and Beaver being bored cooped up in the house so they started reading Tom Sawyer. And there were quite a few episodes where they wore coats/sweaters, including the one where Beaver bought the ugly sweater.


It was raining when Beaver found the "Bald headed Mexican" Poncho right?:)


https://i.ytimg.com/vi/jjPtsyfx8zc/hqdefault.jpg

Chuey lived there with his folks.

I don't recall an episode of Brady Bunch that had a visiting Spanish kid.


Tanker is thinking of the "Peter the wolf" ep. from the Brady Bunch, where Mike and Carol were entertaining the Calderons, a couple from Mexico. And they went out to dine at a pizza parlor where Peter and Greg were on dates. Pete was pretending to be "Phil Packer" an older guy than Peter was ,and sporting a fake mustache! :lol: That was one of my all time favorite eps.! :D


http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-4w1a0qy6S0c/TceTwDkXgGI/AAAAAAAAAm4/DqG-oPa0hJY/s1600/BradyPhil.jpg

Tanker is thinking of the "Peter the wolf" ep. from the Brady Bunch, where Mike and Carol were entertaining the Calderons, a couple from Mexico. And they went out to dine at a pizza parlor where Peter and Greg were on dates. Pete was pretending to be "Phil Packer" an older guy than Peter was ,and sporting a fake mustache! :lol: That was one of my all time favorite eps.! :D


http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-4w1a0qy6S0c/TceTwDkXgGI/AAAAAAAAAm4/DqG-oPa0hJY/s1600/BradyPhil.jpg

Oh yeah! I totally forgot about that, I just remember Peter and his 'stache. haha

It was raining when Beaver found the "Bald headed Mexican" Poncho right?:)


https://i.ytimg.com/vi/jjPtsyfx8zc/hqdefault.jpg

Yep!:)

http://i1023.photobucket.com/albums/af351/Torgo70/Torgo70002/vlcsnap-2016-07-20-08h17m58s376_zpswymwjp9d.png (http://s1023.photobucket.com/user/Torgo70/media/Torgo70002/vlcsnap-2016-07-20-08h17m58s376_zpswymwjp9d.png.html)
http://i1023.photobucket.com/albums/af351/Torgo70/Torgo70002/vlcsnap-2016-07-20-08h17m46s634_zpsypjgwzbl.png (http://s1023.photobucket.com/user/Torgo70/media/Torgo70002/vlcsnap-2016-07-20-08h17m46s634_zpsypjgwzbl.png.html)
http://i1023.photobucket.com/albums/af351/Torgo70/Torgo70002/vlcsnap-2016-07-20-08h18m23s707_zpsqbqowkyo.png (http://s1023.photobucket.com/user/Torgo70/media/Torgo70002/vlcsnap-2016-07-20-08h18m23s707_zpsqbqowkyo.png.html)

Tanker is thinking of the "Peter the wolf" ep. from the Brady Bunch, where Mike and Carol were entertaining the Calderons, a couple from Mexico. And they went out to dine at a pizza parlor where Peter and Greg were on dates. Pete was pretending to be "Phil Packer" an older guy than Peter was ,and sporting a fake mustache! :lol: That was one of my all time favorite eps.! :D


http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-4w1a0qy6S0c/TceTwDkXgGI/AAAAAAAAAm4/DqG-oPa0hJY/s1600/BradyPhil.jpg

This is the one

Mayfield had its social classes. There was a "country club" and a
swanky supper club the "White Fox", where Wally took a date and forgot
his wallet. Scott, Wally's friend, was at home with the housekeeper while
his parent's were in Chicago, in "Weekend Invitation". The middle class
was clearly represented by the Cleavers, the Rutherfords, the Haskells,
and the Mondellos. In "The Grass is Always Greener", the lower class is
seen in Mr. Fletcher, the trashman, whose house was at "the dump" and
who took Beaver home with him to play with his children, much to June's
dismay. Although, Beaver was having a wonderful time and Ward knew he
would.

I've always thought my own town-- growing up, but not now, 5 decades later-- compared well to Mayfield. This town is McKinney, TX. We were a town of about 15,000 in the 60's and 70's, while the suburbs closer to Dallas-- Richardson, Plano, Lewisville-- got all the growth then, doubling, tripling... in size. Then came the 80's and new country club communities with a few celebs coming to live, and then an almost different city, Stonebridge, added to all that 5 miles from the heart of town. For a while-- maybe even now-- we were labeled the fastest growing city in America, while that title was also given to Frisco, 12 miles away. Indeed, McKinney and Frisco 'border' each other now, and I was on a jury a year ago where the case involved a school employee from a school in McKinney School District that is actually in Frisco city limits.

Anyway, those decades ago we had 4 elementary schools, 1 junior high, and 1 high school. That's similar to Mayfield, where Wally once mentions that kids from 6 'grammar schools' [1st though 8th grades] go to Mayfield High. But I always liked living in a one-high-school town, where everybody was behind the football team and other competitions. We weren't small enough that everybody knew everybody, but it seemed everybody did know who all the bankers, doctors, lawyers, school principals, and car salesmen were. But in school-- especially junior high and HS-- there was a bit of arrogance, sometimes bordering on snobbery, from the kids from the west part of town. You can conclude easily that this west part, with it's own elementary, West Ward (our schools were North Ward, my own, and East Ward, South Ward, and West Ward), was the more newly developed with newer houses, and was the choice residence of the 'money' people-- the business and professional folks, whose kids did better in school with family encouragement, and were brought up to consider themselves the 'better' sort. The opposite side of town, the east side, was populated with mostly blacks and Hispanics. The black school (for all grades) was closed down in 1968; before then we had only "token" integration. At that time this county, Collin, was still one of the biggest cotton producers in the country, so our history does include slavery and strict segregation. There is an old story, unauthenticated to me, in which my great great grandfather was given 2 slaves as a wedding present in Kentucky before they began their journey to Collin County,Texas.

Okay, to sum it up... McKinney was a friendly town, quite easy-going, but certainly it had its problems making adjustments into a little more enlightenment around the times of LITB. And the "kid problems" seen on LITB were quite similar to those I knew about. But by high school in the mid-70's it did seem different; there was a drug culture, and everybody talking abut who was going with whom, and how 'far.' But we certainly had our Wards and Junes, our Freds and Gwendolyns, our Eddies and Lumpys, our Larrys and Whiteys, and our Angela Valentines and Judy Henslers-- it seemed like every class in school had a boisterous 'tattletale' like Judy and a mysterious one like the almost unseen Angela. And younger kids did put our top athletes on a pedestal and bragged about them being our brothers or cousins or friends or neighbors, or knowing their brothers and sisters. Maybe if you think of the Mayberry in the Andy Griffith Show as being larger, like the size of Mayfield in LITB, you may (:lol: ) have our town in the 60's.

Unfortunately, if you caught any news about us fairly recently, it was probably about one of the incidents of race and the police. But no details about that right here. I'll just say that is one of those big differences in going from 15,000 people to 160,000, where we are now.