Winoka
Winoka was a fictional town, in DAKOTA Territory, in Michael Landon's Little House on the Prairie tv-series.
Depiction
The town is much bigger and much older than Walnut Grove. It has a hotel (where Charles and Caroline work and live with their children), a saloon, a bank, a church and three schools - public and private one plus the special blind-students school. The schools have their baseball-teams and fight each other.
Plot
The Ingalls family moves there after a dry-spell in Walnut Grove, following Mary, who went there with Adam Kendall in order to teach in brand-new school for the blind children. The Ingalls are accompanied by their friends; the Garveys and soon joined (although, accidentally) by the Olesons. This is also where Albert Ingalls appears for the first time and befriends with Laura and the rest of family.
Life in such a crowdy and noisy place turns out not to be pleasent for the Ingalls and their friends, so they all decide to move back to Walnut Grove. Mary stays in Winoka and soon marries Adam. After a while, they decide to leave the town, as well, and the school for blind students is moved to Walnut Grove.
Notes
The stay in Winoka is a fictional moment in the series, although is has some real-life backgrounds. The Ingalls did left Walnut Grove and lived in Dakota (in De Smet, South Dakota) but they stayed there for there for the rest of their life. They also lived temporary in a town bigger and noiser than Walnut Grove, where Charles and Caroline worked in a hotel. It was in Burr Oak, Iowa.
References
fr:La_Petite Maison dans la prairie#Winoka