Springfield is the setting of the television soap opera Guiding Light.

Location

The show was in close proximity with other soap cities, such as Bay City and Oakdale. Bay City and Oakdale, in the storyline, are located in the state of Illinois (in real life, there is an unrelated Oakdale, Illinois), so, ostensibly, Springfield would also be in the same state. However, Springfield, Illinois is the state capital and the town represented on Guiding Light is much smaller. Also, no hints have ever been dropped that the town was the capital of the state like it is in real life. In other references, most recently in a check written by the character Alexandra Spaulding (played by Marj Dusay), Springfield is a generic city merely located in "U.S.A.".