I grew up in a township, there was no town per se. All around us was farmland, mostly corn, and a few cattle farms. Less than two hundred yards up the road from us was one of the area's original one room schools, first build in the late 1890s. It was less than a hundred yards the other way to the Little Miami River. There was a grain mill just on the other side of the river, on the railroad tracks.
Most of my friends were farm kids, and we did a lot of fishing and hiking through the woods. The only entertainment nearby was a speedway (oval track and drag strip) a mile or so away, but we seldom went due to the cost.
That area is now an incorporated city, quite affluent in fact. A few miles away from where we lived, in what was once corn fields, are gated homes we'd have considered mansions as youngsters. There is also a golf course, a huge shopping mall and associated strip malls/restaurants/businesses, and an interstate bypass.
