With so much "Midget Mania" on this forum, I thought I'd start a thread for folks wanting to share their memories of Midgetville or stories they've heard over the years. Here's mine:

Dean "Midgo" Darling
1928-2004

Last Midgetville Little Person Standing.
May he rest in peace.

A few weeks ago, I had dinner with my aunt in Sterling, and we got to talking about Midgetville as I knew she had lived around there years ago. I about died when she told me she knew someone from Midgetville. He went by "Midgo" and my aunt gave me this picture she had of him from the 70s. They both worked at the Cedar Park Safeway and became friends. They lost touch after my aunt married and moved to Richmond. She retired last year and moved back to Northern Virginia to be closer to her grandkids and nephews. She only learned about Midgo dying only recently when she ran into a friend from her Safeway days.
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We kids talked big about Midgetville when I was in high school but never really checked it out. The reality would have been a real let down I suppose. Still, one of my coworkers swears he got laid in the foresty area there while kegging with a group of jocks from Marshall.

I have lived in Vienna for 15 years now, and I only
recently learned about Midgetville. My neighbor is
an original home owner in Dunn Loring which is very
close to Midgetville, This would have been in the
60s. Kids were pretty wild then and he remembered
two huge no-no's. First, they use to do donuts in
the yards near Stonewall and Jackson Parkway just
off Cedar Lane. And second, they also use to get
in trouble a lot for "trespassing the gnomes" of
Cedar Lane. He didn't believe the whole midget thing
but just thought it was a bunch of eccentric little
houses built to entertain the land owner. He also
heard that people rented those little houses. Were
they pissed renters? You better believe it. They had
to put up with a heap of crap over the years.

I remember Safeway at Cedar Park and sure do miss it. I also remember they had a little person bagger. Doesn't look like your picture of "Midgo" (hard to believe, by the way), but I suppose it could be. This was a long time ago.

This is not really a story about "Midgetville" but I think it's fair to say it illustrates a part of its history. It really should have been called Harrassmentville and this video pretty much says it all. Referred to as a "comedic documentary", it more like a video of dumbasses.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=1732507233897058056

Can you imagine living there with all these strangers intruding, pointing, laughing? Privacy? What privacy? I feel bad for the people who tried to live in "Midgetville". I strongly doubt there ever were any midgets living there...just imaginary ones. Why? No one has really provided any real evidence. The original poster here has an interesting story, but is it true? Who knows. And who really cares.

I wonder if the renters ever knew what they were in for when they signed on. It would be interesting to hear from someone who actually lived there.

Your little friend "Midgo" looks an awful lot like Robin Williams. Is this for real?

Seriously, do you have any other info about this "Midgo"?

The "filmmakers" strike me as teenagers old enough to drink.

Sometime in the summer of 1973 or 1974, I remember walking around the homes there real sneaky like hoping to crush the rumors and win a dare. It was on the weekend really early in the morning and a midget at the Spanish compound watering a garden gave me a good hosing. Got my camera wet too. I definitely saw a midget or dwarf that day, I don't know which is politically correct. I've walked that RxR bike trail for years later and never saw or heard a peep from in there. Heard plenty of stories though...all legend and hearsay. Knifings, off-duty policeman with a sawed off shotgun, crazy dogs, bullhorns used with a PA system, drug exchanges, Witchy Wendy the Palm Reader, rock throwing, sex rendevouz, you name it. Though people did trespass a lot, they sure got ten-fold back.

who gives a shit
bulldozed and gone
let it fucking die

NICE POEM

Let's ramp up the confusion. From the stores of my incredible knowledge:

Midget is a term used to describe an exceptionally short person . The terms "midget" and "dwarf" are often used synonymously, as both terms mean someone who has been short in stature since birth, but those terms were not originally synonyms.

Midget is a term that was originally coined in 1865, referring to an extremely short person with limbs similarly proportioned to his body as an average-size person's.[1] P.T. Barnum indirectly helped popularize "midget" when he began featuring General Tom Thumb in his circus. Dwarf was originally used to denote those with short limbs as compared to those who had proportioned limbs. Like many other older terms, "midget" has become part of popular language, although it was often used in a pejorative sense. When applied to a person who is very short, midget is now often considered offensive, an example of the euphemism treadmill.[2] Actor Hervé Villechaize insisted on being called a "midget" as opposed to a "little person", which irritated dwarf activists of the time.

Unusual shortness of stature is caused by an inherited gene and can be diagnosed at birth by several telltale signs or later when the child is a toddler. The word dwarf has generally replaced midget though the term little person is preferred. According to the Little People of America, dwarfism is "a medical or genetic condition that usually results in an adult height of 4 [feet] 10 [inches] [(147 cm)] or shorter, among both men and women, although in some cases a person with a dwarfing condition may be slightly taller than that."[3]

Modern terminology now distinguishes between the two types of dwarfism using the terms proportionate dwarfism, such as primordial dwarfism, and disproportionate dwarfism, such as achondroplasia. Proportionate dwarfism is often the result of a hormonal deficiency (such as growth hormone deficiency), and it may be treated medically.

Webster's New Collegiate Dictionary (Merriam-Webster, 1961) defines "midget" in the noun form as "a very diminutive person", and in the adjective form as "like a midget in size; very diminutive", hence its usage as a synonym for "miniature", as with cars.

According to the Online Etymology Dictionary, the term "midget" comes from "midge", meaning a sand fly, and the suffix "-et", meaning little or small.[4]

1^ Kennedy, Dan (2005-05-23). "What is Dwarfism?". American Documentary. Retrieved on 2008-10-11.
2^ "The "M" word". Arturo Gil and GilArt Designs. Retrieved on 2007-08-07.
3^ "Little People of America FAQ". Little People of America. Retrieved on 2007-03-01.
4^ "Online Etymology Dictionary - midget". Online Etymology Dictionary. Retrieved on 2008-04-03.

Here we go again with some more racist bullshit. Short people are for real. Take your Randy Newman attitudes and stuff where the sun don't shine.

..............



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/05/2015 10:10PM by WingNut.

So, where the hell did all the midgets go live when they tore down them houses?

And i thought this fucking thread was long gone. WHO GIVE A FUCKING SHIT?!! Raise your fucking hands. My point made. No hands.

Hey, forum owner, do some weeding shit out.

Made in the USA Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> With so much "Midget Mania" on this forum, I
> thought I'd start a thread for folks wanting to
> share their memories of Midgetville or stories
> they've heard over the years. Here's mine:
>
> Dean "Midgo" Darling
> 1928-2004
>
> Last Midgetville Little Person Standing.
> May he rest in peace.
>
> A few weeks ago, I had dinner with my aunt in
> Sterling, and we got to talking about Midgetville
> as I knew she had lived around there years ago. I
> about died when she told me she knew someone from
> Midgetville. He went by "Midgo" and my aunt gave
> me this picture she had of him from the 70s. They
> both worked at the Cedar Park Safeway and became
> friends. They lost touch after my aunt married and
> moved to Richmond. She retired last year and moved
> back to Northern Virginia to be closer to her
> grandkids and nephews. She only learned about
> Midgo dying only recently when she ran into a
> friend from her Safeway days.


Poor Midgo.

MIDGETVILLE HEREBY LIVES, YOU PC MAGGOTS!!!! ONCE AGAIN THE QUALITY OF THIS MESSAGE FORUM HAS ONCE AGAIN RISEN TO THE TOP. MIDGETVILLE WAS REAL AND ITS DESTRUCTION WAS AN INCREDIBLE TRAGEDY. SO, IF YOU HAVE A STORY, PLEASE SHARE!! DON'T LET THESE BASTARDS INTIDMIATE YOU WITH PORNOGRAPHIC PICTURES AND ASSININE COMMENTS. THERE ARE PLENTY OF US HERE THAT WE WILL DEFEND YOU.

Hey, midget boy, get over yourself.

LOL, man, all of the stories I have about that place from High School. I remember the one where they threw bricks at a friend's car, and here he was, this huge linebacker, running around like Godzilla trying to kick the Midgets. He managed to grab one and toss him into the Trees.

Tell us more of your cool stories, son. Midgetville rules!

Hey, I miss Midgetville too! Growing up around here I heard about the angry midgets who lived on Cedar Lane. I only have one tidbit story to add. My dad use to get painting work done from this little people couple, Shorty and Peg. I don't remember much but I think they were retired circus folk.

Joan "Swishkabob" Lane

It's so sad that it's all gone. They haven't even really started building yet, just clear cut.
We used to drive down the street late at night and freak each other out. Same with the Bunnyman story. Watching creepy movies and tell stories and then drive by. It was fun.....then.

Oh, I remember them. They painted our basement and the misses gave me piano lessons! Mrs. Peg I called her. I think the last name was Sylvester or something like that. They made a real impression on me because they WERE circus performers way back in the day. I knew they lived somewhere near our house next to Stenwood Elementary, but I never put it together that they could be Midgetville residents. Weird.

Midgo is Robin fucking Williams. I smell big time scam. Nevertheless, I did drive by there back in the day. It was creepy as shit. Didn't see any midgets though.

Mighty Midgo! From what I understand, in his younger days he was part of the luggage detail in the Ringling Bros. (where he earned his name "MM") and rode a unicycle.

What was your aunt doing with a photo of him shirtless?

Hey, man....what's new with Midgetville? Check out my old website:

http://www.clubhabel.com/midgetville.html

Uh... choked on some Capn' Crunch when I read this. No limit to the rich gayness on this forum....

"...As a reference point for all these houses, remember: my head nearly hits the roof, my penis can look out the window...."

FortyFiveYearsYoung Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Hey, man....what's new with Midgetville? Check
> out my old website:
>
> http://www.clubhabel.com/midgetville.html

I like the "Midgets Suck" and "I Hate Midgets" graffiti

Sound like hate crimes to me. Those midgets who lives there should sue.

The photo essay mentioned above is not "our" Midgetville.
(No idea where it is. Somewhere near a bay?)

Some poor soul thought this forum needed something interesting, so I thought it might be time to bring an old favorite back to the top of the list.

I am still crying over the destruction of Midgetville. Isn't it interesting that Connolly left the scene after taking a dump on Midgetville? Nothing more than a hit and run. He has left the scene of a crime and a tragedy. The death of our beloved Midgetville. The righteous quarters for long lost midget folk like Midgo. Some days I just can't keep it together. This hurts so fricking bad.

....And Im not even a midget. I stand 5' 2" and tower over Connelly.

Discuss. Someone got some splainin' to do.
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Must have been some hot shit going down at the Cedar Park in the 70s. Not that things have changed all that much.

I did some investigating work a few months back. I don't know why I waste my time, but I have a grainy picture I took of robin williams at the beach last year. I used my kids Hanna Montana camera. It's shit, yeah. But I think I solved the mystery. Midgo is Robin Williams. Busted.
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Hey, Knucklehead, that means Robin Williams is about 85 years old. Or are you saying the picture is a scam? And why would the guy's aunt have a picture of Midgo playing pocket pull? That's just creepy. Midgo is clearly not a midget UNLESS we're talking about his manhood. Then the whole concept of Midgetville is really wack. I don't think it's Robin Williams. This could be a 70s pic of a Midgo but I don't know that he's amidget. We need to see how minature he is to a regular size human adult and the picture just don't give us that. Columbo, where did you get this picture? Fantastic.

The "Midgetville" in Vienna, Virginia was a collection of six small cottages that were torn down in 2008. In 1882 the site was a small summertime resort that people visited when they wanted to escape the stressful lifestyle of Washington, D.C. In 1892 the area was purchased by Alexander Wedderburn. In 1901 the hotel burned to the ground, but a normal-sized two-story building was built around the same time at the corner of the property. In 1930, one of Alexander Wedderburn's sons, George, built six small Spanish-style cottages. A courtyard in the middle of the property was sometimes used as a fairground or a farmers' market. The Wedderburns briefly established the Wedderburn Music School on the site. The cottages were rented out but the place eventually became overgrown with ivy and trees.[1] In 2002 the family signed a deal with contractors to tear the place down and develop the property.[2] Though the proposal created some controversy, the Fairfax County, Virginia Board of Supervisors voted to approve the project.[3] The cottages were all destroyed and the trees were removed in early 2008 to make way for "Wedderburn Estates."

I discovered some info about Midgo in a private forum which I can't reveal now without getting a heap of trouble. The mystery of Midgo and Midgetville is incredible to say the least. I did not doctor the image of Midgo with the pants incident. I have my sources. Made in USA ("Kyle"), you need to ask your aunt what's up with this? She aint sharin' the half of it. I think she was having an affair with this guy.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

midgetville

copied from ridemonkey this morning: You know you're from Northern Virginia if...

also, i'm getting closer and closer to finding midgetville. success is in sight.

Posted by corey on February 11, 2004 02:56 PM | Permalink
Comments

That's some good stuff.

Senior year a group of us headed out on a serious hunt for Midgetville. We thought we saw some extra low mailboxes...but that's about it. It's one for the ages...

Posted by: Chris | February 12, 2004 10:51 AM

You are a fucking moron.

Posted by: Genius | February 12, 2004 05:30 PM

yeah, i'd be hard-pressed to disagree with you there.

Posted by: corey | February 12, 2004 05:57 PM

Wow...I was just kidding...woah. I thought this was a friendly place.

Posted by: Chris | February 12, 2004 06:27 PM

oh, i always assume anyone yelling 'dumbass' is talking to me. habit i guess.

Posted by: corey | February 15, 2004 01:03 PM

the midgetville in virginia is in either oakton or vienna. its basically across the street from Thoreau middle school, in the neighborhood across the street from there. for directions from tysons, take 123 towards vienna and make a left at the intersection where Southern States used to be (its no a bistro and something else, jammin java and the safeway are at that stoplight) make a left at that stoplight and take the road until it ends. make a left when it ends, make your 3rd left and go to the end of the road, youll see the no trespassing signs, youre there. be careful, ive had 3 midgets come after me with rocks, take a dumpy car when you go and dont go too fast, youll wake them up. also, dont go during the day, if they see you, theyll jump infront of your car. good luck! and go slow, if you dont mess with them, they wont wake up and wont see you. BEST OF LUCK IN MIDGETVILLE

Posted by: Bishop O'Connell Graduate | May 14, 2004 07:34 PM

The directions below are correct. This is, in fact, Mdgetville, VA. The name of the road is Wedderburn Lane.

Posted by: Thomas | June 23, 2004 05:19 PM

One time i went with my friends to midget vill and they were sitting in their yard and my friend threw his shoe and hit one in the head and they started chasing us and throwing rocks and such.
true story

Fuck stone bridge high school

Posted by: Greg | July 7, 2004 10:30 PM

Alright kids, the Midgetville legend gets better. I was there many years ago, and can confirm a secluded cluster of seven creepy tiny houses on Wedderburn. I recently had a renewed interest to see it again since the whole thing may be torn down for new houses. I went back with a friend just last night, and sitting across the entrance to the cul de sac was a police cruiser. The cop was just sitting there in his car, motor running, lights off. There is no chance he was there to do anything but guard the midgets as there is literally nothing else on this street. Hmmm, what are they hiding in Midgetville? This consiracy goes to the top top levels!

Posted by: Midget Hunter D | August 6, 2004 12:36 PM

In response to Greg, who throws a shoe at people? I can understand throwing something at a stalking coyote, but throwing a shoe at strangers? If I were gawking that badly at people, I'd want to keep my shoes on to actually run like hell away in embarrassment.

Posted by: Jenn | August 7, 2004 02:17 PM

yup, midgitville exists allright. tkae the derections above, and you might see a couple of the houses from the public road. i snuk in the coldesac and saw a dozen small, kinda ghetto houses. maby about 6 feet tall. doornobs are low, patio furniture is tiny. it was a night, so i dident see any midgits :( i heard they throw pebbles at you, so BE WARNED

Posted by: guest | August 23, 2004 05:07 PM

Hey Thomas...you're a dumbass!

First of all let's get something straight.
THERE ARE NO MIDGETS IN "THE VILLE"!!!

I'm 6'3" & I live there!
Everyone just grow the fuck up.
I know NOVA is boring, but god-damn go get laid instead of creeping around 100 year old homes.

- T

Posted by: TJ | August 26, 2004 01:20 PM

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A31856-2004Aug25.html

Posted by: Anonymous | September 26, 2004 01:04 PM

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A31856-2004Aug25.html

So you list the web address but don't tell everyone what this is... NICE. I live in "Midgetville", and want to stop the myth. This is an article from the Washington Post about the area everyone calls Midgetville, and the true story behind it. The basic idea is that the family is tired of idiots like you stirring up trouble, and want to leave. Please spread a little TRUTH. There ARE NO MIDGETS! Let us enjoy our little area in peace!

Posted by: Zimmydoom | October 7, 2004 11:18 AM

http://www.egoinc.org/mtarchives/2004/08/23/the_midget_saga_finale.html

a later post regarding the midgetville myth. do your homework.

Posted by: corey | October 7, 2004 12:18 PM

I GREW UP ON LOCUST DRIVE, JUST UP THE STREET FROM WEDDERBURN LANE. LIVED THERE 24 YRS. SORRY .. NO MIDGETS. I HOPE MY DAD AND EVERYBODY BACK IN MY OLD HOOD WIN THE FIGHT V. THE DEVELOPER THAT WANTS TO BUILD 900 HOMES THERE. FAIRFAX COUNTY ALREADY HAS PLENTY OF HOMES. TO THE DEVELOPER, YOU CAN KISS MY ASS !!!

Posted by: JIM | November 30, 2004 12:29 PM

I live in Southern Virginia and I kinda believe the myth and then again I don't yea sure the houses look wierd but . . .can you imagine how many rumors can be made about towns with freaky names . . hey well geuss what Virginia also has a Lynchburg and Mechanicsville.
I know for a fact there are midget 'communes' however midgetville does not appear to be one of them. Best of luck to everyone.

Posted by: Sony | February 26, 2005 03:20 AM

Well damn, if we didn't bag 4 midgets there last night. We did only tag and release them so we could monitor their progress and migrations in the wild. They seemed healthy enough and when the tranqualizer wore off they stubled back into their warrens.

Posted by: steve | March 1, 2005 10:55 AM

where the fuck is midgetville me and a couple of peoples want to Go.!...
if i make it i'll be back..to let u KNow..what went down

Posted by: Meira | March 16, 2005 11:07 PM

So what up hommies I got the low down on the Mig vil. It was built decades ago in order to house the gov't conspiracy of using midgets to drive bombs during WWII. Secretly though the midgets came up w/ their own conspiracy and came up w/ the land we refer to as migetville. The reason for all the hub bub is that it was the midgets cover to protect themselves and their leader "Midgo", they secretly released info about midgetville to the foriegn press, so the Soviets would get wind of it and that the gov't would have to close up shop and the midgets could live in peace for generations to come.

Posted by: Trey | July 20, 2005 09:50 PM

we're survivers

Posted by: jdsn | July 24, 2005 09:39 PM

Hey, me and my boyfreind and brother went to Midgetville last night, and we drove thru the culde sac, and all we saw was LITTLE tiny houses and patios. It was so cool, i was so scared that one of em would wake up and chase me out wit a RIFLE. I heard they got rifles and chase you and will even shoot you. So do not go to midgetville during the day time, because i would be scared to. I went at 3am ish. They were sound a sleep then. I didnt stay long, I was too afraid they would wake up, since it has a NO TResspassing sign, and NEIGHBORHOOD Watch.

Posted by: Linda | October 20, 2005 09:20 PM

Best party I ever went to was in midgettville...No midgetts, but definately lots of wine and hop pocket. Those kids are tight, don't fuck with'm during this time of exodus. shout out to the blue mountain crew...

Posted by: The Dude | October 21, 2005 11:48 AM

man I went 2 midgetville durning da night and dat place was fucking scary. I hit dat place up @ 2:00 am and dat place was full of small houses. once u get there u better b w/ someone cause dem midgets will pop out of no where. da next i went at da same time and some of dem midgets were walking around and my dumass friend went out of da car and yelled fuck u midgets

Posted by: marcelo | January 16, 2006 12:44 AM

Ok, you want the truth? I went to Midgetville last night. Not the one in VA but the one in PA, the truth is that theres a ton of these midget compounds (they orginated in WWII). Anyway, the one I went to last night is truly the best. I dont want to post directions or the name of the commune because that takes all the fun out of the midget hunt. However, if you really are a die hard little people lover and need to find the place in order to catch and tame a midget, I can help. I will give you clues to get to "midgetville", (not the real name). Pmaganas@yahoo.com
ps its well worth the trip... little houses, little stop signs, little gazebos, super little playgrounds for super little kids.... god i wanna go back right now

Posted by: Pete | March 19, 2006 10:46 AM

I taught at Marshall HS for years....It's a mile or so away....We've been there. It's real! Most are achondroplastic.

Posted by: Joe | April 3, 2006 11:50 AM
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Prepare to shit your pants, readers. Here's some personal photos to enjoy. The mystery of Midgetville lives on and grows:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/8503162@N02/sets/72157600270358668/

UNBELIEVABLE. THE POST NEEDS TO DO A STORY ON THIS. GREAT DETECTIVE WORK, COLUMBO OF VIENNA INN. KEEP IT COMING!!!!!

And some ass wipe here says this forum doesn't have anything interesting?!!! WTF?!!!!!!!

You breaking this story wide open!!!!!!!

More research.....
-------------

EXTREMESKINS.com > HOMEFIELD ADVANTAGE Forums > The Tailgate > Midgetville! And other local urban legends.
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Spaceman Spiff
October-23rd-2005, 01:21 AM
If you're from northern Va, you've probably heard this urban legend...some people swear up and down that its true, others say its just a myth...

but apparently there's a neighborhood in northern Va where everything is scaled down to vertically challenged people...smaller houses, everything. The rumor is that if people drive down there they get PISSED.

I don't really believe it but a girl that I knew in high school swore it existed, and I heard about it lately. I'm just wondering if anyone else around the area knows of it or anything. I'm still not a believer...it's pretty funny to think about the possibility of it existing though :)

Anyway, what urban legends do you have that are local to your area?
Ghost of Nibbs McPimpin
October-23rd-2005, 01:25 AM
Go to sleep, Spacey.

:D

Oh, and nothing local here. I know there've been some really dumb urban legends, nothing like that I can remember though. I'd have to search back in the mind for a few examples.
MissU28
October-23rd-2005, 01:25 AM
it's TRUE though...my ex took me around there bc I didn't believe him...but i saw it. It's in this woody neighborhood in Vienna.

Also, I've heard stories of the Bunnyman's bridge....never been there though.... scurry
hapapplrcool
October-23rd-2005, 01:56 AM
this is no myth. midgetville exists in vienna, va (off of wedderburn rd.), near thoreau middle school. they have their own community (houses are scaled down), but due to the immature local high schoolers who bother them from time to time, police have been called to guard their area.
here's a link about selling midgetville's land...http://www.geocities.com/Yosemite/Trails/9401/midgetville.html
Cdowwe
October-23rd-2005, 02:01 AM
Theres a midgetville here in cincy too.
Destino
October-23rd-2005, 02:11 AM
Also, I've heard stories of the Bunnyman's bridge....never been there though.... scurry
You know why no one ever goes to bunnyman's bridge in the day? Because this:http://www.aaronsnitzer.com/images/articles/20040816004309534_2.jpg
is not scarey.
But who wants to walk through this.....http://www.virginiaghosts.com/bunnyman/bunnyman2.jpg
...at night?

Totally made up tale but it's good fun for the teens.
Fergasun
October-23rd-2005, 02:20 AM
We went to midgetville in HS... it was a little strange.

I read somewhere on the Internet (was it this site?) that it wasn't build specially for midgets but someone just wanted to develop these small houses. Reminds me of that Geico commercial with the people on "Tiny House". I don't know if I buy that it wasn't built for the little people though.
Chris Lamb
October-23rd-2005, 07:21 AM
If you're from northern Va, you've probably heard this urban legend...some people swear up and down that its true, others say its just a myth...

but apparently there's a neighborhood in northern Va where everything is scaled down to vertically challenged people...smaller houses, everything. The rumor is that if people drive down there they get PISSED.

I don't really believe it but a girl that I knew in high school swore it existed, and I heard about it lately. I'm just wondering if anyone else around the area knows of it or anything. I'm still not a believer...it's pretty funny to think about the possibility of it existing though :)

Anyway, what urban legends do you have that are local to your area?

Where I grew up in Sykesville, Md. there was a place just like that, everybody called it Smurf Village. No midgets,dwarfs or trolls lived there to my knowledge though. Your myth is busted. But I think knowing the local folklore is essential in any place you live. Its fun stuff to hear about and talk about.

*no offense intended for any vertically challanged people.*
CrabR
October-23rd-2005, 11:02 AM
Gen. Braddock buried treasure in Centerville, off of the old Braddock road, and buried it 100 paces due east of the "big Spring". He supposely buried gold coins in a small brass cannon .

heard this from locals back in the late 60's
autographcollector
October-23rd-2005, 11:33 AM
Well one of the most famous stories in the area existed within miles of fedex field on Lottsford road. The road is now a concrete major thoroughway....but as a highschooler it was a windy wooded road...we used to drink beer and head down the road and scare ourselves...

Matter of fact I drive this road to fedex field on sundays...

http://cablespeed.com/~rringeisen/mmdurban.html

I will attempt to post the text, the link has pictures...

Cry Baby Bridge - It seems this is a typical type of legend, one for every state in the US. The legend in Maryland takes place on Lottsford road in Prince George's county. According to the story, a young couple and their months old child are driving on Lottsford Road late at night. All of a sudden, the car putters, and dies on the bridge, apparently out of gas. The couple exit the car leaving their child in the back seat, they check things out with the car and determine someone had forgotten to fill the tank. The couple get into a bit of an argument, the husband pops the trunk, grabs an empty gas can and mentions how he's going to find a gas station and for her to wait near the car with their child. The husband walks off and the wife stays put near car, she stands around the rear of the car and walks around though doesn't stray too far from the car. After a minute or so she turns around and walks to the front of the car, she notices their child's head sitting upright on the hood of the vehicle, blood all over the place. The woman screams and runs in the direction her husband started walking a couple minutes ago. It doesn't take long for her to catch up with him and bring him back to the car. When they both reach the car there is nothing on the hood of the car, not even traces of blood. There is also no baby in the back seat of the vehicle. Police later search the area and find nothing, the parents are suspected of murder, etc, etc, etc.
Now, supposedly if you park your car on the bridge late at night, turn off your headlights, shut off the engine, etc, you can hear the baby crying in the distance. This story takes place on a somewhat narrow bridge on Lottsford road in Prince George's county, about 1 and 1/2 car width wide. This bridge was recently demolished in the late 90's and a wider bridge was put in it's place. This hasn't killed the cry baby bridge legend, now it's been transferred to another location in Prince George's county that is more fitting, Governor's Bridge Road. A lot of the area on this road has yet to be developed, it's still heavily wooded with narrow roads. On this road there is an old metal suspension bridge that is one lane wide and goes over a branch of the patuxent river. This bridge itself is very beautiful, don't see much like it anymore, I hope it stays in it's place for a long while.

. .
Above are a few pictures of the metal suspension bridge on Governor's Bridge Road. These were taken in 2001.
autographcollector
October-23rd-2005, 11:36 AM
Lottsford Road home of the Goatman????? This road was really erie as a kid...

http://groups.msn.com/marylandtheoldsupernaturalstompingground/goatman.msnw

Location: Woodmore RD, 1/3 mile from the Losttsford & Woodmore junction West of Bowie

Team Members: Josh, Toni, & Tam

Subject: Goatman, an urban Legend concerning a half man / half goat creature that most believe was the product of a genetic experiment gone awry. The Goatman has been sighted for years throughout the Bowie & Prince George’s area in Maryland! There has been an especially large amount of sightings reported along Lottsford & Lottsford Vista Roads. He is usually reported as carrying an axe that he uses to terrorize young teenagers parked at “Lover’s Lane” type locations, such as the Lottsford Vista Bridge (a.k.a. Crybaby Bridge). He has also been known to prey on small dogs and other animals, very similar to the chupacabra.

For Further Reading Please See:

The Legend Of Goatman by Sean Daly

http://www.washcp.com/archives/cover/1998/cover0918.html



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Report:

While on a hunt for the famed Goatman; Tam, Toni, and I found our selves in Bowie, Maryland. We were riding down Lottsford Rd. where it turns into Woodmore Rd. when Tam (in the back seat) informed Toni and I that she had just spotted a goat walking down a road we had just driven by. At first Toni and I though she was joking. She wasn’t! We made a quick U-turn and backtracked to the point where she had seen the creature.

It turned out that it wasn’t a road, but a private driveway (just across the street from Woodmore Elementary School) the creature had been traveling on. We were excited at the synchronicity of spotting a wild goat just trotting down the street, I mean after all we were looking for the Goatman. If we had indeed found a goat then we were halfway there, and all we needed has the man half! But when we located the creature that Tam saw, we were a little confused.



What we came across was a strange white animal that looked like it was part albino deer (with black circles around its eyes) and part goat. None of us could decide what we were looking at. It looked very much like a deer, but the funny thing was, is that there were a 3 normal looking deer standing in a field about 50 feet from our creature (there was about an equal distance between us and our creature, and us and the deer) … and our creature looked very little like those deer. And if it was an albino deer why did it have dark markings on its fur?



These photos were taken from a video camera using night vision, hence the darkness and lack of color. The "Wide Screen" feature was on as well so this picture is stretched vertically a bit. The animal was much shorter than it appears here. It also looked like it had a sort of goatee hanging from its chin.

Here's a picture taken at the same time, location, with the same lighting, and camera conditions.



It shows a "normal looking" deer that we saw as well. Notice how much darker it is.



I have also included a negative of this picture in order to help you see the deer better.

We saw our creature only for a few seconds, before it casually sauntered off into some nearby woods. I went in after it, but unfortunately the creature eluded me. I was then spotted by a resident of the property I was on, and left before the police could be called.

Could this be what so many kids have been living in fear of for all these years? Or had we discovered something new? Maybe this creature is an offspring of the original Goatman, who has been around for at least 30 years. Maybe the Goatman in all his isolated loneliness and confusion about his genetic perplexity found comfort and love in the form of a deer and what we came across is some sort of Goatman / Deer lovechild???

Or maybe it would be more comforting to think that what we saw (and photographed) was little more than a product of dark lighting and our overactive imaginations. Maybe it was just a deer.

But one thing is certain…. whatever it was, it’s still out there.



Sleep Tight Prince George’s Residents!



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Apendix A:

A Larger Enhanced Photo of the Creature:
dfitzo53
October-23rd-2005, 11:53 AM
Where I grew up in Sykesville, Md. there was a place just like that, everybody called it Smurf Village. No midgets,dwarfs or trolls lived there to my knowledge though. Your myth is busted. But I think knowing the local folklore is essential in any place you live. Its fun stuff to hear about and talk about.

*no offense intended for any vertically challanged people.*

That's pretty much what it is in Vienna too. There are tales of a crazy shotgun-wielding midget, but unfortunately they aren't true. I knew a guy in middle school who lived there (it's off of Cedar Lane in the vicinity of Thoreau). They're basically just small, cheap houses.
jbooma
October-23rd-2005, 05:16 PM
If you're from northern Va, you've probably heard this urban legend...some people swear up and down that its true, others say its just a myth...

but apparently there's a neighborhood in northern Va where everything is scaled down to vertically challenged people...smaller houses, everything. The rumor is that if people drive down there they get PISSED.

I don't really believe it but a girl that I knew in high school swore it existed, and I heard about it lately. I'm just wondering if anyone else around the area knows of it or anything. I'm still not a believer...it's pretty funny to think about the possibility of it existing though :)

Anyway, what urban legends do you have that are local to your area?

it is in vienna :)
Ron Mexico
October-23rd-2005, 08:44 PM
this is no myth. midgetville exists in vienna, va (off of wedderburn rd.), near thoreau middle school. they have their own community (houses are scaled down), but due to the immature local high schoolers who bother them from time to time, police have been called to guard their area.
here's a link about selling midgetville's land...http://www.geocities.com/Yosemite/Trails/9401/midgetville.html
I've been there like 5 times, when I was in high school

And more...you can't believe the wealth of interesting material out there!!!!
----

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March 23, 2004
Remember the Little People

Disclaimer: I know that the politically correct term is 'little people.' Don't think me insensitive but I think 'little people' is just a little too politically correct. If there are any midgets in the audience, I apologize for my insensitivity.

There's a rumor in the Washington DC area that there's a little place - no pun intended - called Midgetville hidden in the Virginia suburbs. Little is known but this much is rumored to be true:

- Midgetville is located in an older suburban neighborhood shielded from much of the normal suburban traffic.

- Midgetville contains no more than a dozen houses, clustered together and surrounded by high fences.

- Houses in Midgetville are size-appropriate. Counters and doorknobs are lower and everything is smaller.

- Midgetville inhabitants fiercely defend their territory from the intrusion of the outside world. This has resulted in a number of midget attacks when curious visitors have tried to glimpse this mini-paradise.

- Midgetville was supposedly spawned when Ringling Brothers was headquartered in a neaby area. The circus has since left town.

While I've known people who know people who've visited Midgetville, I have no trustworthy first-hand evidence that such a place exists. This land of the midgets remains entirely elusive. Thus began my Midgetville Quest. When in doubt, Google it. Right? Wrong.

When I attempted to do some research on the existence of Midgetville, I encountered an enormous amount of midget porn. These are not short porn films. I encountered titles containing midget-on-midget sex, midget-on-normal person sex, groups of midgets engaged in orgiastic delights...just about everything you can possibly think of. And while this did not directly contribute to solving my overall problem (the existence of Midgetville), it did inspire a few theories.

- People really like midget porn. I mean, there's a lot of midget porn out there.
- There are lots of horny midgets willing to do anything for cash.
- The rumored Midgetville may actually be the epicenter of midget porn.

The first two are relatively straightforward. I think they speak for themselves. But the third deserves some consideration. Think of it - we've got Hollywood where most of the mainstream movies are created. Actors and actresses, producers and directors all live clustered together, creating the insular communities around Hollywood. It makes sense. Why should midget porn be any different? How else can the fierce defense of Midgetville be explained? So, if we assume Midgetville does indeed exist, I think its safe to say that its probably the capital of midget porn in this country.

And here - rather abruptly - the Quest ends, but only temporarily. I vow to continue the quest and I ask for your assistance. If you have any information on Midgetville, please let me know.
Posted by Chris at March 23, 2004 12:48 PM
Comments

sometimes you worry me. and frighten me.
Posted by: laura at March 23, 2004 01:03 PM

Oh dear... What to do: leave work, don't drive yourself, don't make stops, don't consume alcoholic drinks or drugs (that won't mix with what you already took) and go straight to Dr. Phil. I'm sure he can help you get over this issue.
Posted by: Sweety at March 23, 2004 01:12 PM

Okay. Are you sure you didn't discover the porn accidently, then make up the story so you could visit it again. Ya know, in the interests of "research." ;-)
Posted by: Oliquig at March 23, 2004 01:15 PM

Elliot in the Morning sent his interns in search of Midgetville...I believe they found it but were extremely disappointed. Was hardly Munchkinland but intead resembled some kind of little people trailer park.

But they weren't allowed to take pictures, so it totally could have been Munchkin Porno Land. In fact, I'm totally going to say it is whenever someone talks about it.
Posted by: Amalah at March 23, 2004 01:21 PM

I've always secretly believed there must be a a freaky midget brothel somewhere...
Posted by: emily at March 23, 2004 01:34 PM

can we have our leprechauns back now please?
Posted by: Marie at March 23, 2004 01:44 PM

as soon as I saw the word midget, I decided to NOT open the extended entry, so I have no idea what this post was about and I think it's better that way.
Posted by: yvonne at March 23, 2004 02:25 PM

Reminds me of the retired circus freak town myth. Of course, there may well be such a town (rumoured to be in Florida), but is it really right to intrude on their privacy to find it - when they've finally made a home for themselves where they won't be stared at and judged?

That said, I just don't get the midget porn thing.
Posted by: pie at March 23, 2004 02:55 PM

This post had me nearly in tears (laughter - not sadness) LOL I loved your theories.

There is a magazine, and website called Weird NJ (weirdnj.com I believe is the site). Issues come out every 3 months I think, and in these magazines is everything from haunted houses to strange people to legendary animals (think Jersey Devil). I don't know about a midget village, but we supposedly have an albino town somewhere. And the stories are about the same. The town is small (a dozen houses or so) and set back from any main roads and they are very protective of their land and hostile to trespassers.

Don't know much about albino porn though....

You should perhaps make a weekend out of finding midgetville, and then you can answer your questions. Seriously! Daniel and I used to go searching through NJ for a lot of the stuff we read in Weird NJ. It was a lot of fun.

Too bad I've only ever posted one of our findings:
The Enchanted Forest
Posted by: Tjej at March 23, 2004 03:04 PM

i had no idea something like that existed around here. but bailey's crossroads isn't far ... road trip!

maybe we can find a whole "town" of bearded women too.
Posted by: tj at March 23, 2004 04:11 PM

Midgetville...love it! You come across the most random things. Amalah's probably right...I listen to Elliot on the radio sometimes. If anyone wanted to find out something like that, he could. Maybe you should email him! And share the details! :)
Posted by: Zandria at March 23, 2004 05:14 PM

Yeah I heard about that on the Don&Mike show awhile back.. it's very weird/cool. I feel kind of sad for them because so many people go out and gawk at them.
Posted by: Maureen at March 23, 2004 05:28 PM

There's a rumour that a Midgetville existed outside of Philly a few years back. I never could get it substantiated, though.
Posted by: Coleen at March 23, 2004 08:55 PM

OMG - that was hysterical (wipes away tracks of masacara while howling out loud!).
Posted by: Mala at March 24, 2004 11:11 AM

You inspired me to google. I typed in 'midgetville virginia' and found a top 100 list. It didn't say where you could find midgetville, but it did say that if you live in Virginia, you know where it is. 37. You know where to find Midgetville

So I think you should ask someone from Virginia.
Posted by: Ginny at March 26, 2004 01:09 PM

IT IS LOCATED IN VIENNA VA. from lee hwy, take cedar lane north. make a left on wedderburn. you will see houses in the corner behind a no trespassing sign.

-JES
northern virginian
Posted by: jes blaiz at April 10, 2004 02:39 PM

This hurts my head, lol. I am a student in a college class entitled race, class, gender, and one of the students came across an article involving discrimination of those suffering with dwarfism. Well, the teacher went with it, and up came Midgetville. It amazes me, because so Midgetville exists in New Jersy, Florida, Virginia, Pennsylvania, and god knows where else. I live in West Virginia...haven't heard about a Midgetville here yet, but I'll keep my ears open. For the record, I am submitting this post and some of the replies to my instructor, I'm sure she'll find them humorous, lol. Very funny stuff, especially how you linked Midgetville as being the capital city of the midget porn industry. (Industry? Is it that big yet? Excuse the pun....) Anyway, I know this is all in good fun, but don't be too quick to spread the rumors. I'm pretty sure that if someone said something like...oh I don't know...a "Niggerville" existed...there would be some pretty mad people out there...so you might wanna keep feelings in mind. Bye!
Posted by: Tristan at April 18, 2004 12:29 AM

Westcoast Midgetville
There is also a Midgetville in Riverside, California (about 1 1/2 hr east of Los Angeles)!
A small documentary was made researching the city of little people, and was just shown last night at the Riverside Municipal Museum. I bought three DVDs.
I grew up in "Munchkin Land" which is in Downey, Ca (Los Angeles County), so I found the story very intriguing.
If anyone is iterested in "The Mysteries of Midgetville", you can email Bill Bell: rhea@yahoo.com
Posted by: Corinne at May 2, 2004 05:17 PM

Somebody commented on a supposed carnival "freak" town. Yes, that does exist and there was an episode of "City Confidential" about a murder there (involving, believe it or not, Lobster Boy). It's Gibsonton, Florida. Just search Amazon and you can find the video of the episode. It's item number 0767021371.
Posted by: Mark at May 8, 2004 02:51 PM

Midgetville (the one in Virginia) is also mentioned on www.RoadsideAmerica.com.
Posted by: Mark at May 8, 2004 02:52 PM

If you search on the Fairfax County web site's Tax Assessment Page for 8515 Wedderburn Lane, the listing shows a 2 acre lot with multiple tiny (300-800 sq. ft) houses on it. If you click the map link and then change the options to check aerial photo, you can see an aerial photo of the property. They keep saying it's an urban legend, but 300 sq. ft is really small!
Posted by: amyx3 at June 21, 2004 12:10 PM

Check out this FFx county tax page...this could be it...will keep you updated..
Posted by: nick at June 23, 2004 10:51 AM

http://icare.fairfaxcounty.gov/Forms/Datalets.aspx?mode=profileall
Posted by: nick at June 23, 2004 10:51 AM

drove by the other day, it's off cedar on wedderburn, all sorts of town board meeting signs, you can't miss the place, didn't see any midgets though. i think you can get a better view from the bike path?
Posted by: joel at June 27, 2004 06:10 PM

it's real. it's right by my house. :-) you can get directions from googling "Midgetville Vienna".
Posted by: TishaKitten at June 30, 2004 10:52 AM

I went there today. Holy fuck. My story, straight fro my lj because i'm too lazy to type it out again:

"We're walking. And HOLY FUCK I NEED TO TAKE A PISS. So Khai and Jeff go down the road. So I go pissin in the midget bush...... when out of no where Khai is like HOLY FUCK A CAR. And I'm like HOLY FUCK RUN FOR YOUR FUCKIN LIFE and I'm runnin for my life down the driveway..... this FUCKING RED VOLVO STATIONWAGON WITH TWO MIDGETS. I'm fucking serious. So I get out of the property and go to the side of the road about 400 feet away from the property.. and the car drives to where i am and STOPS... yelling and honking it's fucking horn at us repeatadly... And I'm like UHH FUCK. So I keep running, and Jeff and Khai who tried to hide behind a tree, ran too. We ran up some random house's property and the god damn stationwagon pulls in there to chase after us...... holy fuckkkkk. So we cussed all the way home. HOLY FUCK FUCK."

holy fuck fuck. so really. it's like a mix of west va and an enchanted forest. IN THE MIDDLE OF YUPPIEVILLE. damn.

four pictures for you:
http://img13.photobucket.com/albums/v39/grapefruitage/midgetvillecough/woods.gif
http://img13.photobucket.com/albums/v39/grapefruitage/midgetvillecough/shed.gif
http://img13.photobucket.com/albums/v39/grapefruitage/midgetvillecough/road.gif
http://img13.photobucket.com/albums/v39/grapefruitage/midgetvillecough/cars.gif

seeeeeeyah
Posted by: Eric Randalls at July 7, 2004 11:56 PM

midgetville is in New Jersey, on Rdige Road right before the GWB exit (Georgre Washington Bridge exit of the NJ Turnpike)
Posted by: gina at July 13, 2004 05:54 PM

I have directions to the T, I have been there about 3-4 times, its in nova. its off I-66 E, take the Nutley Street (VA-243) exit. If you want directions email me.
Posted by: Jon at July 14, 2004 09:23 AM

I have been to midgetville a few dozen times because i live in Vienna Virginia and live about a mile from the place. First off, I have been back in midgetville in a car and have never seen a midget. I have seen one regular sized man. The people do not go outside. They have a sign about a gaurd dog and many no trespassing signs. The houses are very small and look strange. The houses are located around a loop driveway. I think there are 7 houses. I have never seen a midget or been attacked but I am almost sure that midgets are really there because the neighborhood is obviously trying to cover something up. The neighborhood in on wedderburn street in Vienna Virginia. This is located off of Cedar Lane Which can be easily reached by taking Rt. 66 From DC. E-mail me for more info.
Posted by: df at July 15, 2004 12:38 PM

Midgitville is both real and a myth. My friend's family owns the land and they are normal size people. They've sold it to developers who are planning to tear down the tiny-little houses where no midgets abide and replace them with normal-size house where I assume no midgets will abide. My friend is trying to prevent the sale from being completed against her family's will even though the papers have already been signed. She's trying to raise money and attention to the issue in order to save the tiny-little mythologized homes.
Posted by: jds at July 19, 2004 12:32 PM

I had a friend that lived in one of the houses on the Wedderburn property, about 10 years ago. I picked him up and dropped him off a number of times to and from work.

I never saw any "little people", but I did notice that the houses were very small, in contrast with the other homes in the nearby neighborhood.

The recent rezoning notice caught my attention and I drove by the property. I respected the No
Trespassing signs, but did notice the Yellow Re-zoning signs. Someone had placed "postponed" across both the signs that I saw.

Sadly the beginning of the end for a local myth.

More lies about Midgetville. Protecting the midgets that existed there....
---------------------------------------------------

“Midgetville”

This probably is the explanation for the rumours I’ve heard, on and off over the years, about a hidden little town somewhere in fairfax where “little people” live.

Article is kind of sad though, actually, on several levels.

Article saved below.

Emotional Investment
A Family’s Decision to Sell Vienna’s ‘Midgetville’ Ignites Bitter Opposition

By Jacqueline L. Salmon
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, August 26, 2004; Page VA16

“Midgetville” doesn’t look like a place over which a war is raging.

The eight acres along the Washington & Old Dominion trail in Vienna, overgrown with wild grapevines and ivy and populated by deer and foxes, are sheltered by towering pines, tulip poplars and mulberry trees.

Members of the family that has owned the land for more than 100 years still live there quietly in aged cottages scattered throughout the property. The diminutive dwellings have spawned an urban legend that they are the homes of midgets — hence the nickname.

But the family’s decision to sell the land to a developer has sparked an emotional battle in the Fairfax County neighborhood — and within the family itself.

Some homeowners in the vicinity say the proposed development ignores Midgetville’s rich history and would destroy an oasis in their midst.

“It’s basically been untouched for 70 years,” said David Levey, a resident of a nearby neighborhood who is leading opposition to the project. “It’s an absolute jewel of old Vienna.”

So far, neighbors have managed to delay county approval of the project. A Planning Commission vote, set for June, has been postponed until later this year.

But descendants of the newspaper publisher who purchased the land more than a century ago now want to sell it to a developer for $4 million, and they angrily accuse neighbors and county officials of interfering with their property rights.

Beset by illness, struggling to afford the $14,000 annual property tax bills and tired of teenage vandals, the family members say the land has become a financial and emotional burden.

“Everybody has decided that the history stuff is more important than what reality is,” said Jane Nixon Leppin, a great-granddaughter of Alexander J. Wedderburn, publisher of the Alexandria Item, who purchased the property in 1892. It is now a wedge of land bordered by the W&OD trail on the north and Cedar Lane on the east.

“I understand that none of us likes change, and this county has gone through a lot of change,” Leppin said in a recent interview.

But, said Leppin, who owns the land with her three sisters, her family should not be made to pay for residents’ uneasiness with the rapid disappearance of undeveloped land in Fairfax.

“It breaks my heart to see it go,” said Leppin, who is also battling her own daughter, who opposes the sale of the family property. “But it’s going to have to go, because my family cannot support it anymore.”

She began to weep.

The unbroken lineage of the Wedderburn land is remarkable in a county where most longtime land-holding families sold out decades ago to developers.

Indeed, the property is a throwback to an earlier, transformative time for Fairfax, when the rural county began evolving from an “agricultural hinterland to suburb,” according to a consultant’s report prepared for Elm Street Development Inc. of McLean, which wants to develop the Wedderburn land.

Wedderburn, who eventually owned about 300 acres in and around today’s Vienna, used the land now known as Midgetville for summer fairs for area farmers. A hotel and several cabins were already on the property when he purchased it. Along the north side of the Wedderburn property ran the Washington, Ohio and Western Railroad, which extended from Alexandria through Fairfax County, stopping at Wedderburn station along the way.

In the late 19th century, Fairfax was attracting increasing numbers of urban dwellers, who rode the rail line out to the bucolic county to escape the noisy, crowded District. Attracted by the clean air and green spaces, they stayed at the various resorts that dotted the railroad line. Wealthy Washington businessmen began building summer homes there.

With their cottages and hotel, the Wedderburn family catered to summertime clientele. Alexander Wedderburn even drew up plans to subdivide some of his land into 79 small lots for a community called Wedderburn Heights. He filed those plans with the county, although they never reached fruition.

The hotel burned down in 1901, according to historical accounts. But a two-story stucco home built on the property around the turn of the century is still there today, barely visible behind a wall of greenery to passing bicycle riders along the W&OD trail.

The property was passed down through the Wedderburn family. In the 1930s, one of Alexander Wedderburn’s sons, George, built six small, one-story Spanish-style rental cottages that still stand. According to family lore, he furnished them with pianos because he loved music.

Polly Wedderburn Nixon, daughter of Alexander’s son Augustus, inherited the property in 1944. When Nixon died in 1995, it passed to her four daughters — Jane Nixon Leppin, Eloise Nixon Jones, Nan Nixon and Pollyanne Marcieski.

The property has been virtually unchanged for decades. A dozen small dwellings — half of them tumbledown and uninhabited — nestle under a towering canopy of trees.

Jane Leppin lives in one of the cottages, and one of her daughters, Janel Wedderburn Leppin, occupies another. The family rents out several others to artists, musicians and coffee-shop workers.

But Jane Leppin said that ownership of the land became increasingly difficult over the years because of mounting property taxes, vandals and the rising cost of upkeep on the dwellings.

In fact, the family dislikes the “Midgetville” nickname because for decades the legend of the area has attracted teenage “midget hunters” who invade the property late at night to race their cars along the narrow dirt road encircling the compound, honking their horns and throwing bottles, eggs and other trash at the homes.

Once, a rock crashed through her mother’s window, Leppin said, just missing the elderly woman.

Years ago, she said, Polly Nixon began exploring selling the land and sought the advice of Fairfax developer John T. “Til” Hazel. He urged Nixon to sell the land as quickly as possible, said Leppin. Otherwise, she said, Hazel warned that “everybody who moves in around you will think that your trees are their trees, and the longer you are there, the more they will insist that the trees stay.”

The Wedderburn sisters signed a deal with a developer that ultimately fell through. In 2002, they signed one with Elm Street Development, agreeing to sell the land to the McLean firm if Elm Street could get the approvals for a residential project.

Elm Street teamed with Falls Church developer JCE Inc., which owns five acres adjacent to the property.

The original development plans for the combined 13 acres called for 29 homes, up to 6,000 square feet each, on quarter-acre lots clustered on the site, with two large areas left undeveloped and a buffer along the W&OD trail — totaling about four acres of open space. Developers pledged to landscape along the property line of the W&OD trail to screen the homes’ rear yards from the trail. The county Planning Commission staff had recommended approval of the original plan.

But opponents say that the amount of open space is exaggerated, since one of those areas is actually for a storm water management pond. In all, they say, the project crams too many homes on the land compared with surrounding neighborhoods, which feature smaller homes spread across half-acre lots.

“It’s too big,” said Levey. “What we’re seeing . . . is ignoring the history and the topography of the site.”

Some government bodies have also expressed concern about the project.

The Northern Virginia Regional Park Authority has said that the buffer area between the homes and the bike trail property line — in some places just 30 feet — is inadequate. And the town of Vienna says it is concerned about the increased traffic load on its streets.

In June, the developers withdrew their plan and said they would resubmit a joint proposal within the next few weeks that they hope will resolve some of the concerns of opponents of the project.

But zoning lawyer Greg Riegle, a spokesman for the project, pointed out that the developers’ original proposal calls for an average of just over two homes an acre — about the same as, or less than, the density of surrounding neighborhoods. It is less than what is shown on the county’s comprehensive plan, which calls for two to three dwelling units an acre there.

“We think — and have always thought — that these 29 houses fit well into the community,” said Riegle.

The land is zoned for one home an acre, and opponents are organizing an effort to get the county’s comprehensive plan reduced to that level on the property.

James Perry, a principal with Elm Street Development, said the density of the proposed project “is in the middle of what is already out there” in the surrounding communities.

But the developers, who met with homeowners in May, have failed to mollify neighbors. Two dozen neighboring homeowners urged county planning commissioners at a May public hearing to reject the deal. Residents have also met with Supervisor Linda Q. Smyth (D-Providence) and Providence planning commissioner Kenneth A. Lawrence to lobby against the project.

“It would change the entire complexion of the area,” said Stu Vogt, who has lived in a neighborhood adjoining the property since 1966.

“I don’t think you can hold up progress,” added Ruth Zeul, who has lived nearby since 1957. “But I would like to see it less dense, or not with such big houses on small lots.”

Janel Wedderburn Leppin, who was raised on the property, also strongly opposes the sale, said Jane Leppin. The family’s insistence on going through with the deal has seriously strained the relationship with her daughter, she said. “We argue about this: How fair is it for a family to have invested their life in a property and then need to get that livelihood out of that property?” asked Leppin.

Janel Leppin refused to comment about the sale. But last month she started a music school — the Wedderburn School of Music — on the site.

Her mother is skeptical that her daughter’s efforts will succeed in keeping the land in the family.

“She has some lovely ideas, but you have to make them come to reality,” said Leppin.

Leppin said a major factor pushing the sale is the expense associated with a genetic kidney ailment — polycystic kidney disease — that runs in her family.

Leppin undergoes kidney dialysis at home four times a day and needs a kidney transplant. She and her husband had hoped to use their share of the proceeds of the sale of the Wedderburn land to buy a home closer to the Johns Hopkins medical facility in Baltimore where she will go eventually for a kidney transplant. They also want to set aside some money in case any of their children contract the disease.

But now, she said, neighbors and foot-dragging county officials are destroying those hopes.

“The way we’re looking at it now,” she said bitterly, “we’ll be lucky if it’s another two years” before the family project is approved.

“I am just furious at the community as a whole right now,” she said. “To me, it’s like a bunch of tigers out there.”

© 2004 The Washington Post Company

cswiii @ 2:57 am
8 Responses to ““Midgetville””

1. Paul Martin Says:
September 7th, 2004 at 2:07 pm

Having known many people (including the Nixon’s) who have lived in and loved “The Wedderburn” since the 1950’s, it was heartening to know a happy place of my youth still exists. Even for a short time.
2. ?????!!!!! Says:
October 14th, 2005 at 11:45 am

where it be at?????!!!!! U GotZ to tellz me NOWZ!!!! reach me first
3. ryme Says:
October 22nd, 2005 at 8:58 am

yo i heard midgetville waz hot i might go der 2 fuk all ya midgets over der iigh so be prepared
4. jrock Says:
October 22nd, 2005 at 9:04 am

yo midgetville waz goog ni99s u probably seen me already i waz da 1 who broke ya midgets windows lolz dat shyt waz so funny
5. scarecrow Says:
October 22nd, 2005 at 9:21 am

wen i find dat place me an my boy ryme r gona bomb ya ni99as wit rocks an bats
6. Mary Twiford Says:
December 2nd, 2007 at 2:06 pm

Wow, bet you never receive a letter like this…In July, 1946, my late husband, Capt. Carl Twiford, resting in Arlington now, and I, rented a small cottage like this site mentioned. We were newlyweds.Carl worked in the District, but I was a homemaker, and our older son, Terry {a former Marine} , was born there. We were there, maybe 15 months, before moving to MD, on the Potomac..They were delightful days, cool, beartifully treed, and as I walked out the front door, the Old Dominion RR tracks were there..I know the area has done a 360 degree change, {Tyson’s corner}, but I well remember Mr .Wedderburn..As a matter of fact, I THINK I left some books there for the next occupant…I remember the kitchen oven, in which a baked mouse popped out one AM. What fun we had, and MARVELOUS memories..I am writing because, I do volunteer work here, trying to slow down the tremendous concretization of our FL. county..It corresponds with what YOU are trying to do…Your Environmental Protection officials should be able to help. Do let me know how you are coming with the {hopefully}, restoration, or preservation.. So nice to have found you all on Google..Mary Twiford, Ruskin, FL.
7. Dana Holland Says:
December 19th, 2007 at 3:57 pm

I became interested in this property recently through a friend at work. I live near the Wedderburn’s old property site. It stands abandoned and the road is chained up with signs on it. The property was sold to Elm St Developers, the same I believe who developed the Evans Farm Inn site by removing the farm and putting up mega million dollar plus mansions.

This lovely little low land will soon to be more such land stripped of its lovely trees and probably filled in with fill dirt to build more mega mansions with no trees around them. Just what we need here right? I wrote to the Governor’s office and a writer for the Governor wrote a two page letter with his explanations about how this site is not a historical site and per zoning laws… it will be developed and you know how it goes — just that it goes. More land, more trees, more animal life and more history, gone except preserved in photos and books perhaps. It would be wonderful for someone in the Wedderburn/Nixon/Leppin family to memoralize their family history in this area and their pursuit of property in a book some day. It is very hard to let a piece of property go like that but it is also hard to maintain it in this day and age of ever increasing TAXES!!! To all the birds, and owls and wildlife in “Midgetville” of Wedderburn Heights, goodluck in finding a new home and thank you for gracing our neighborhoods for years past. This would have made a lovely garden and park for Vienna but I guess just as it is not of “historical” importance it is not of “park” importance either to our local government.
8. Mary Twiford Says:
July 11th, 2008 at 11:37 pm

July 11, 2008..Mary Twiford, Ruskin, Fl.,
Just tuned in again.. I hope this situation has been adjudicated amicably by now, and that the lady has had successful medical treatment..It takes brains and heart to solve the impasse….I remember the happy days there from June,1946 for about a year or so, and I am emailing my son, who was born while we lived there among the cool trees, to Google this and learn a bit about his first year. Here, in Florida, I do volunteer work, with a group which works hard to slow down some of the concretization of our land..I wish the best for all.

And yet, more private emails/forums on the ongoing historical debate of what we call "Midgetville".....
---------------

lowkey
08-12-2004, 02:04 PM
Don't know if this has been brought up here before, but we were talking about it at work. For anyone that doesn't know, there is supposed to be a village of little people in Vienna, VA. Specifically, 8515 Wedderburn Lane, on a 2.17 acre lot, according to other things on the internet + the Fairfax County web site.

Just wanted to hear what others had to say about this local legend. Here's some links that I've found that were both funny and interesting:


and a picture, for fun:
http://img13.photobucket.com/albums/v39/grapefruitage/preparty/DSC01489.jpg


link 1 (http://www.livejournal.com/community/rural_ruin/193733.html)
link 2 (http://www.roadsideamerica.com/tips/getAttraction.php3?tip_AttractionNo==4204)
link 3 (warning for language - f bombs) (http://www.rudecactus.com/archives/000443.html)
the2rz
08-12-2004, 02:18 PM
I remember going there while at GMU. Interesting to say the least.
lowkey
08-12-2004, 02:23 PM
Did you see any midgets? :lol:

Were those houses back there regular size or were they unusually small? I'm getting a guy at work fired up about this.
AcquaCow
08-12-2004, 02:31 PM
They threw rocks at my car when we tried to drive by (also while at GMU).
ButtDyno
08-12-2004, 02:35 PM
They threw rocks at my car when we tried to drive by (also while at GMU).It must have been the loud sound of your intake :lol:
lowkey
08-12-2004, 02:35 PM
ha - it's always either rocks or rotten fruit.

guy in office - "What the hell do these people do that allows them to stand around and throw rocks at people all day?!" :lol:
the2rz
08-12-2004, 02:36 PM
As I recall the homes were smaller than usual and I did see one guy taking a trash can into his garage.
AcquaCow
08-12-2004, 02:37 PM
It must have been the loud sound of your intake :lol:
This was actually in my old truck and civic....
m477m4n
08-12-2004, 02:40 PM
Theres one up here in PA too.




weird stuffff
Aflaedge
08-12-2004, 03:04 PM
Yeah i live on the other side of vienna from "midgetville" My junior high was nearby as far as I can recall. Anyway I have never been through said attraction, a few friends have but you would be surprised how few towns people know about it.... I think it's more of a fairfax thing to go and oggle these people. Frankly I think you've got to be seriously ****ED UP in the head to bother private citizens with your midget fetish. Good thing i don't live near by cause I'd throw out spike strips so your lame ass can't get away... Then I'd post pictures of your sad ass car after it gets pelted into oblivion with whater these guys throw at losers like you.

/Asshats shouldn't be allowed to buy subarus, make em drive domestic instead
wrxxxrated
08-12-2004, 03:45 PM
Frankly I think you've got to be seriously ****ED UP in the head to bother private citizens with your midget fetish. Good thing i don't live near by cause I'd throw out spike strips so your lame ass can't get away... Then I'd post pictures of your sad ass car after it gets pelted into oblivion with whater these guys throw at losers like you.

/Asshats shouldn't be allowed to buy subarus, make em drive domestic instead[/QUOTE]

did you read someting that I didn't?? Ok, ok...how tall are you someone seem to be a little :mad: ??
Endlesshine
08-12-2004, 03:49 PM
:lol: my thoughts exactly.
lowkey
08-12-2004, 03:57 PM
Yeah i live on the other side of vienna from "midgetville" My junior high was nearby as far as I can recall. Anyway I have never been through said attraction, a few friends have but you would be surprised how few towns people know about it.... I think it's more of a fairfax thing to go and oggle these people. Frankly I think you've got to be seriously ****ED UP in the head to bother private citizens with your midget fetish. Good thing i don't live near by cause I'd throw out spike strips so your lame ass can't get away... Then I'd post pictures of your sad ass car after it gets pelted into oblivion with whater these guys throw at losers like you.

/Asshats shouldn't be allowed to buy subarus, make em drive domestic instead


Was this aimed at me? :lol: :lol: :lol:


Frankly I think you've got to be seriously ****ED UP in the head to make a post like that! :lol: :lol:

edit: I'm still laughing over this. I do like the spike strip comment, though. However, what makes you think a ****ED UP asshat like myself wouldn't drive a Corvette with runflats down there?! BOOYAH! You got served! :disco:
ImprezaRSfan!
08-12-2004, 04:01 PM
went there with a bunch of friends once, but it was at midnight and we saw nothing and ran from a mean dog
bleuquila
08-12-2004, 04:04 PM
blah blah blah

/Asshats shouldn't be allowed to buy subarus, make em drive domestic instead

Napolean complex?? I hear that guy had a pretty short temper. :banana:
Endlesshine
08-12-2004, 04:07 PM
[cymbol crash]

:lol:
AcquaCow
08-12-2004, 04:08 PM
very punny
Endlesshine
08-12-2004, 04:10 PM
very puny


:eek:
wrxxxrated
08-12-2004, 04:12 PM
he's a little :mad:...get it, get it (nudges endlesshine)

XXX
lowkey
08-12-2004, 04:13 PM
I'm a little angry :mad:

:huh:

edit: damn you wrxxxrated!!!! :lol:
TurbojonLS
08-12-2004, 04:17 PM
I've been hearing RE: this place for years. People that have lived in Vienna for their whole lives have never seen it. Still don't know if its true or not.
wrxxxrated
08-12-2004, 04:18 PM
<--------takes a bow
Endlesshine
08-12-2004, 04:19 PM
I don't get it. :huh: But even if I was to get it, what is it exactly that I would get? I mean, what's in it for me?

....
ok, somebody else has to help me finish that monologue up. Spaceghost's musical bbq. I haven't heard it in forever but there is more to the above than what I wrote. I suck, I just have such a short memory.
S-1
08-12-2004, 04:54 PM
hehe, i went there back in highschool. it's right by thoreau intermediate in vienna
Endlesshine
08-12-2004, 05:01 PM
http://captains.ehost.com/sitebuildercontent/sitebuilderpictures/oompaloompa.jpg
coupe98
08-12-2004, 05:07 PM
Back in high school we would always try to find it, but never did.
Calimoxo2
08-12-2004, 05:43 PM
It is real and it's going away to make way for more McMansions.......

Under the rainbow.......
M
08-12-2004, 06:10 PM
No midgets live there. morons.

The houses are very old and At teh time they were built everyone was about that size. Midgetville is a rediculous nickname. I used to work witha guy, who was 5'9" that lived in one of those houses. THey throw rocks at poeple's cars because it is annoying to have people driving through and ytelling **** at you at 4am. YOu'd do the same stuff if i did that in your neighborhood. I grew up in vienna but never went over to "midgetville" because there is no point unless you're going to visit someone.

the end.
corrie
08-12-2004, 11:49 PM
I was looking at that address on the FFX county GIS system, and it would appear that there are several small houses on that property....
http://mason.gmu.edu/~cwolfe3/82176414062357M.jpg
I've never been there, though so I can't say what's actually on that property. Heard of plenty of people that have been there before..but not myself.

The image came from the FFX county page here:
http://icare.fairfaxcounty.gov/Forms/Datalets.aspx?mode=profileall&transParams=..%2fSearch%2fGenericSearch.aspx%3fmod e%3dADDRESS%3b9%3bADDRESS%3b%3b8515%3b%3b%3b%3b%3b %3bWedderburn%3bLA%3b%3b%3b%3b1%3b15%3b500%3b0%3bP ARID+asc%3b2005%3b%3b%3b&idx=1
subyrally
08-13-2004, 12:37 AM
there was a community that was made up of "little people". it was on a large property at the turn of the last century. last i heard, there were only a few houses left. they were tearing them down last i checked.


now on a side note, anyone interested in a trip to centralia Pa.?
SilverBoosted
08-13-2004, 09:23 AM
HaHa I thought midgetville was a local thing in Ct where I used to live.... I guess every state has their version of midgetville.......
corrie
08-28-2004, 11:24 PM
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A31856-2004Aug25.html

Article about that piece of property recently in the wash post.....

Incredible evidence. I shit you not.....
----------------------

Little People, Big World.
Location:
Midgetville
Vienna, VA
Early June 2006

In high school I learned a lot of things. One of the most important things I learned to do is not listen to rumors. Almost all rumors about people, places, and things are false. People like to start rumors. I hate rumors. Never really listened to them, but this one I kept hearing about really grabbed my attention during my senior year of high school. Just to let you know I am very fond of little people. I love midgets. I think they are one of the most fascinating things in the world. And this rumor that I kept hearing about had to do with little people. It was about this place called Midgetville. This mythical village was supposedly a tiny little utopia of midgets where everything from the homes, roads, and mailboxes were respectively sized down for their convenience. I’ve never had it out for little people, but when my friends and I heard that there was a colony of them living 10 minutes from our school can you blame us for being just a little curious?

Apparently these people were midgets from hell. Angry and mean little mother fuckers and who hated trespassers. I’ve hear stories of people being chased out. I’ve heard accounts of people having rocks and bricks thrown through their windows. And if your crazy enough to go into their territory on foot, they will supposedly shoot at you or chase you out with dogs. Honestly, the things I was hearing about this place sounded so ridiculous I figure I’d do a little research to see what I could find on the internet. I ended up discovering a site / forum dedicated entirely to this place. This site was legit. It had satellite images of the place, strategies to get in and out alive, warnings, beginner tips, and forums. Everything I heard about Midgetville from people in school was backed up by this site. The forums had hundreds of posts, supporting everything I’d heard and more. There were even a few posts claiming if they catch you, like if they literally catch you with their bare little midget hands, they will kill you then eat you. One post even said, “They had a monster lurking within their lands. “
Everything was so ridiculous my friends and I seriously had a rough time digesting it all. A burning sense of curiosity began to manifest inside of us. As much as we all wanted to just go to the damn place and see for ourselves if all this was all in fact true, there were severe consequences to think about. Nobody wanted to drive out there with their car, knowing it could come out looking like a piece of scrap metal. We didn’t even think about going on foot. We tried to come up with ways to get into Midgetville without driving one of our cars, but even the Midgetville site said the safest and quickest way to get in and out was with a car. So we had no choice but to take someone’s car. And my friend TJ volunteered to drive his dad’s brand new, less than a week old, Nissan Maxima. Why? We didn’t ask questions or care, because as long as it wasn’t one our cars we were fine and happy to go.

So around 10pm on a Saturday night my friends Tyler, Talloch, Jay, and TJ are all packed in the car discussing strategies on the way to Midgetville. It’s located off a main rain and loops in a big circle back to the road again. There are no side streets and no other ways out of this place other than to make the entire loop and successfully make it back to the road. After arguing for a long time about different strategies we all decided that it would be a smart idea to drive slowly through the place, not to draw any attention, and just act as if we are lost if we get caught. “Were here,” said TJ as we pulled into a gravel road.
In front of us was an enormous iron gate with two bright outdoor spot lights beaming down on the car. The gate was littered with signs that read, “No Trespassing, Beware of Dog, Trespassers will be Prosecuted, etc.” This was no midget gate, this gate was large enough to keep all the dinosaurs from Land of the Time from getting in. Luckily the gate was open, and we began our journey into Midgetville!!!!
The first thing we see is this tiny little shack. A little brown shack the size of a toy playhouse with a tiny white toilet in it. Spooky. Then we see the good stuff. This place was straight out of a children’s book. It was like we had just arrived in a village full of homes built for smurfs. These houses were small man. Take a normal sized house and half everything. The doors, the windows, the roads, mailboxes, and I mean everything was shrunk down. All the houses almost looked like cottages. The lights on the majority of the houses were off, a few houses had their porch lights on, but it seemed as if nobody was home. Next thing we know, were back to the main road again. Nothing happened to us. What the F. That was so stupid. How the hell were we supposed to go back to school and tell everyone that nothing happened?! We didn’t even see some freaking midgets. We had to make one more round.

I’m not a very confrontational person, but sometimes you just lose yourself in the moment. I don’t know what I was thinking or what came over me, but as soon as we all rolled back onto the gravel road and passed the huge iron gate again, everyone started rolling down their windows. I had the middle seat, so I put my head out the sun roof. We all started screaming. I was yelling at the top of my lungs, I figured that would be enough, but then I started to hear Talloch and TJ start screaming, “Come out and fight us you little midget faggots!” “Come out you little midget faggots!” “Come out!” “I wanna see some midgets!”
Then out of the corner of my eye, I saw a house we’d passed flick on its porch light. My heart stopped as I watched this little stocky hobbit with a thick beard, straight out of Lord of the Rings start sprinting at the car.

I’ve never heard myself scream like I did but I shrieked like I was about to get anally raped, and yelled at TJ, “FLOOR IT!!!!” TJ looked behind us and saw the husky little dude closing in on the car, screams “Holy Shit! IT’S TRUE!!!!” and took off. I immediately got on the floor of the car in the fetal position. All I’m thinking will happen next will be rocks flying through our windows and bashing our heads in. They are notorious for this and I wasn’t willing to take any more chances. I had seen enough and wanted to get the F out. We were flying around the circle and were coming around the last bend when I felt TJ slam on the brakes to the car and my friend Tyler, who is sitting in the front passenger seat go, “Oh my god.”

“WHAT THE F**K ARE YOU DOING TJ.” No response. All I can see is TJ’s face. He didn’t even take a look at me when I screamed at him. He just kept looking straight ahead at the road and looked terrified. Finally Tyler who is sitting in the front passenger seat starts to explain to me what is going on.

Tyler : “Dude there is a line of midgets…. blocking the road….and there’s a Viking in the middle.”
“A Viking?? What the F**K do you mean a Viking?!”

“….They’re blocking the f’in road! And there’s a freaking VIKING in the middle!”

viking

I poke my head up to take a look…… I can’t believe what I’m seeing. We must have woken up the entire village. I’d never seen more than a family of midgets all at once, so seeing this many almost put me into shock. Midgets usually don’t intimidate or scare me one bit and it makes my day to see one. If anything, I get a little tingly sensation that crawls up my spine..kinda like the feeling you get sometimes when you pee.. whenever I run across one. Tiny little bundles of joy, right? Not this time.

When I peep my head up from the ground, I find myself staring at a row of Satan’s little helpers blocking the road. These people weren’t your ordinary midgets, they were mean stocky looking mother fuckers, protectors of their land, the warriors of Midgetville who were ready to eat a fucking buffet. They were all standing, locked in arms, creating a road block. And smack dab in the middle was their leader, the biggest midget I’ve ever seen in my life. Standing around 6 feet 5 inches tall, weighing over 300lbs was Goliath himself…..the Viking. The scariest mother fucker of them all.

I accidently looked one of them in the eyes and he showed me his teeth like a rabid squirrel and started eye fucking the shit out of me. I’d seen enough. I got back on the ground, started whimpering like a dog and closed my eyes. I tried to go to a happy place, but I was too scared to think. Death is real concern to me right now. I start praying and thought I heard God answer me a second later, only to realize it was the Viking’s thunderous voice.

“WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE!”

“WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE!”

……. Pause…….

“I SAID WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING HERE!!!!!”
…..he was getting angrier and angrier………

“WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE!!!”

While I’m laying on the ground I hear funny sounds coming from TJ, and look up at him. His lips are moving and notice he’s mumbling. He was answering the Viking’s question. He was in utter shock like everyone else and didn’t realize he couldn’t hear him. Every time the Viking kept asking, “WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE,” TJ would respond a little bit louder than the previous answer. “Im so sorry, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, we’ll leave. Please just let us leave.” All the windows were rolled up and the guy wasn’t going to hear TJ unless we rolled down the windows.

“WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”

“WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE! WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE! WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE!!!!!”

The Viking was going ballistic. I’ve never been so fucking scared in my life. Then it gets really quite. I hear footsteps walking away and the Viking had finally stopped screaming. I felt relieved for a second, thinking he was done. Stupid. It was only the calm before the storm.

“AAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!”

BASH! BASH! BASH! BASH!

He’d ran up to the car, let out a war cry, and started to bash in the car’s front hood with his fist like the Hulk.

” YOU WANTED TO SEE SOME MIDGETS!”
“WELL, HERE THEY ARE!!!!!!!!!!!!”

BASH! BASH!

TJ starts whimpering and begging him to stop.

“Please….no….noooo please….”

BASH!

“WE ARE NORMAL PEOPLE!!!!!!!”

BASH! BASH! BASH!

“COME OUT AND FIGHT ME!!!”

BASH!

“FIGHT ME!!!”

Everyone is shaking. The car is shaking from everyone shaking. We are so fucking scared. Nobody knew what to do. The Viking finally realizes that nobody is going to get out of the car. So he starts to head over to the passenger side door where Tyler is sitting. Tyler starts to shriek as he tries to rip open the door, but it’s locked. So he starts trying to punch in the window with his fist. Tyler is freaking the hell out and screams, “FLOOR IT!!!! FLOOR IT!!!!!!”

As soon as the Viking broke off from the road block, there was a decent gap in the middle of all the midgets blocking the road. TJ floors the car, and shoots straight for the hole. The midgets realize were not stopping and start jumping out of the way before they get hit. As soon as we got past the road block and around the last bend, we were home free. And as were leaving we hear the Viking in the distance let out one final cry as we speed home. We won. We had fucking survived. We were going to be heroes on Monday.

Til this day, we have never gone back to midgetville. People claimed this place didn’t house midgets, or they never saw them when they went to Midgetville. That shit is bannas. B-A-N-A-N-A-S. We saw them with our own eyes and have lived to tell the tale. We theorized that the road block was a protocol whenever they ran into a group of annoying high school kids passing through. Were glad they didn’t throw rocks, and we were able to get TJ’s car fixed before his dad came home from his trip. As for the Viking we believe he either had a midget wife or girlfriend, or was the kin of the two strongest midgets in the village. Long live Midgetville.

Columbo of Vienna Inn Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Discuss. Someone got some splainin' to do.


Damn, I didn't know that Midgo was the lead singer in U2.

Columbo of Vienna Inn Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------

> Til this day, we have never gone back to
> midgetville. People claimed this place didn’t
> house midgets, or they never saw them when they
> went to Midgetville. That shit is bannas.
> B-A-N-A-N-A-S. We saw them with our own eyes and
> have lived to tell the tale. We theorized that the
> road block was a protocol whenever they ran into a
> group of annoying high school kids passing
> through. Were glad they didn’t throw rocks, and we
> were able to get TJ’s car fixed before his dad
> came home from his trip. As for the Viking we
> believe he either had a midget wife or girlfriend,
> or was the kin of the two strongest midgets in the
> village. Long live Midgetville.


BAHAHAHAHA, LOL, the damn funniest story I've read in a VERY long time.

ThePackLeader Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Columbo of Vienna Inn Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > Discuss. Someone got some splainin' to do.
>
>
> Damn, I didn't know that Midgo was the lead singer
> in U2.

It does look like BONER of U2! Can't be as the mother has no sunglasses. They is surgically attached to BONER. I still think it's Robin Williams.

I'm impressed with your "research". Columbo of Vienna Inn, your expose' screams insanity in the wilderness of Vienna. I hope you find the midgets you are looking for.

The resemblance is uncanny.
Attachments:

INCREDIBLY LAME....No way is THE Midgo THE Bono. Anyways, when the hell did Bono have time to work at Safeway on Cedar Lane in the 70s. A bit of a stretch, man.

Can we please cut this shit out? I'm tired of hearing this troll's lament. WHO GIVES A SHIT?!!!! STOP MAKING NOTHING OUT OF NOTHING!!!!!!!!

Feel the Wow Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> The resemblance is uncanny.

(Killer photo by the way. Like WHAM's retarded cousin.) NOW STOP WITH THIS SHIT. STOP MAKING NOTHING FROM NOTHING, TROLL FUCKER.

Is this thread about Langley Park Maryland?

When I was in high school in the mid 90's, my friends and I were given a map, reminiscent of a treasure hunters map. I don't remember how we got it but it led us to many nights of drunken drive bye's to midgetville! HAHAHA it was scary too, when the residence would see our cars creeping up, they would run out and through rocks at us and pound on our cars. ahhh...good times! but looking back now, it wasn't very nice....SHAME ON US!

"Well damn, if we didn't bag 4 midgets there last night. We did only tag and release them so we could monitor their progress and migrations in the wild. They seemed healthy enough and when the tranqualizer wore off they stubled back into their warrens."

Good god that's funny!

The midgets all live on Braddock Rd between Clifton Rd and Union Mill Rd

Big O Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> When I was in high school in the mid 90's, my
> friends and I were given a map, reminiscent of a
> treasure hunters map. I don't remember how we got
> it but it led us to many nights of drunken drive
> bye's to midgetville! HAHAHA it was scary too,
> when the residence would see our cars creeping up,
> they would run out and through rocks at us and
> pound on our cars. ahhh...good times! but looking
> back now, it wasn't very nice....SHAME ON US!


One time my friend rolled up to the wooded street entrance, but he was confronted by a woman who stretched a rope across the roadway (It had a sign on it saying: "No Trespassing"). He walked up to her and said: "Are you a midget?" Lol, she started to say something to him, and he replied: "But I really want to see a midget. Where are the midgets at? Are you a midget?". She was just a short statured lady, so he was obviously being insulting as hell.

What a fantastic thread this is! Just put a search in google and whamo. I use to live near Vienna in the 60s when me and some buds rented an old house behind the Tippy Taco House on Lee Highway. I remember one night smoking a load of pot, me and my buds drove over to Midgetville on Cedarlane. it was a god awful august night and we didn't have no air conditioner. We had heard about these little midgets living around there, so we parked at the strip mall with the old Safeway or whatever and walked over there. it was pretty late and really dark. We could hear the TVs out the windows of these little houses. I remember hearing some Dead from one of the houses and we thought that was cool. Midgets into the Dead, man. Cool. I don't know why, but being high and excited to see the midgets my old lady and I got it on in the woods there. While we were zabout to swap cum, my friend walked over to one of the houses and watched TV from the window while we did our thing. Soon after I climaxed, I hear a screen door slam and saw a flashlight go off 100 feet away from us. Some midget had seen my friend, Glen Rodgers watching Johnny Carson in his window. We beat it to the car, my balls hanging out the underwear. I had to leave my pants. But it was all cool. Great times. Our visit to Midgetville was the highlight of that month for sure.

Screw Remey's Crypt. This is the shit that someone should be investigating.

I tried showing my friend this place, we went there and it was torn down

Midgetville is now zoned for about 20 McMansions, and they've only sold one house (poor guy). There were more people living there when it was still Midgetville.

I hate midgets more than illegals. Why do they have to be so god damn short. Fucking grow up or die.

Baffo Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
I
> don't know why, but being high and excited to see
> the midgets my old lady and I got it on in the
> woods there. While we were zabout to swap cum


Classy. Mom and Dad gotta be proud.

We guys made friends with one of them when I was in high school. We called him Cowshit. His name was Cowsette or some shit like that. He was the son of a midget mom and dad and wasn't midget hisself, just short. We read comics at his midget house and when we was in his cellar basement we tied up roaches and hung them to die. He had a 22 we shot a couple times right there. Scared some neighbors to shit. when I got off to the college, I heard that he moved out of town cause hiss dad got shot at his job. His mom was kind of a whore and waited on the tables at Vienna House I think. I wish I could find him out and seen if he born some midgets hisself.

I know the family who owns the land or whatever claim no midgets ever lived there..... but I think thats a load of bullshit. i heard a whole lot different things when I was young like that the old man there had a thing for midgets and built this little town so he could "study" them. But then when he or a son or something, got one of them pregnant, the wife or mother got wind of it, and they all got piad off and kicked out. I have no idea if it's true and hope its not but why the hell do you build a little town of tiny houses on your property.

FU MIDGET________________ FREAK!

knock this shit off asshole!
---------------------------------------

http://www.examiner.com/dwarfism-in-oklahoma-city/why-the-word-midget-is-so-offensive-to-little-people

Why the word Midget is so offensive to Little People

When asked what is the most offensive thing anyone can call you, most Little People will answer “The “M†wordâ€, meaning of course the word midget. To most it is very derogatory and demeaning to hear this word. In many cases you will hear Little People compare “the M word†to “the N wordâ€. To most it’s just as hurtful and segregating. So where did this word come from in the first place?

Well let’s start with the history of the word Midget and how it was formed. It was formed from the word midge, meaning "small fly"and the suffix "-et", meaning little or small, so that a midget is in fact a "very small fly". We first find midget in 1848 in Canada with the meaning "sand fly". Where does the word midge come from? In Old English it was mycg, and it goes back to an Indo-European root, *mu-, which also gave us mosquito and, by a circuitous route, musket. The Indo-European form is thought to be imitative of the humming sound made by such insects.

It wasn’t until 1865 that the term was originally coined, referring to an extremely short person with limbs similarly proportioned to his body as an average-size person's. It was P.T. Barnum who indirectly helped popularize "midget" when he began featuring General Tom Thumb in his circus. Since then, some have been lead to believe that it is an accurate medical diagnosis when in fact is not considered accurate, as it is not a medical diagnosis, though it is sometimes used to describe those who are particularly short but still proportional. Most believe that the reason most Little People do not like the word “midgetâ€, is dated back to P.T. Barnum’s circus of “Midgets and Freaksâ€. Being exploded like animals is nothing any human wants.

Does this mean anyone less than 4’10†is a Little Person? The answer is no. You have to be diagnosed with a particular type of dwarfism; can not be due to ethic back ground – i.e. Asian, Pygmy, or due to lack of nutrition. With this said, do those not under the “Dwarf umbrellaâ€, yet under 5’ still have some of the same difficulties in our ever growing world? Of course, this is why LPA is fighting to have more places lower their counters, ATM’s, gas pumps, etc., more on this in the next article, along with places in Oklahoma City that are Little People friendly.

Continue reading on Examiner.com: Why the word Midget is so offensive to Little People - Oklahoma City dwarfism | Examiner.com http://www.examiner.com/dwarfism-in-oklahoma-city/why-the-word-midget-is-so-offensive-to-little-people#ixzz1DxypMlCj

I believe some of your details are wrong here.
There was a little person named Jimmy Caroubi
who played a character called "the Midge" in a
movie in the 50s (I think it was called "Woman
for Joe"). It could be that guy you are
taking about (Midge vs. Midgo). Dean Darling
was a character on a couple Andy Griffith shows
Not sure how your aunt mixed up the names, but
Caroubi was a French actor that just kind of
disappeared after the 50s. It's possible
that's the guy who was living on Cedar Lane.
I attached a few pics:




Made in the USA Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> With so much "Midget Mania" on this forum, I
> thought I'd start a thread for folks wanting to
> share their memories of Midgetville or stories
> they've heard over the years. Here's mine:
>
> Dean "Midgo" Darling
> 1928-2004
>
> Last Midgetville Little Person Standing.
> May he rest in peace.
>
> A few weeks ago, I had dinner with my aunt in
> Sterling, and we got to talking about Midgetville
> as I knew she had lived around there years ago. I
> about died when she told me she knew someone from
> Midgetville. He went by "Midgo" and my aunt gave
> me this picture she had of him from the 70s. They
> both worked at the Cedar Park Safeway and became
> friends. They lost touch after my aunt married and
> moved to Richmond. She retired last year and moved
> back to Northern Virginia to be closer to her
> grandkids and nephews. She only learned about
> Midgo dying only recently when she ran into a
> friend from her Safeway days.
Attachments:

the other pic:
Attachments:

..
Attachments:

Memories of Midgetville.........


My Mom's best friend owned "Midgetville" -- the six cottages sat behind the main house, which was near the train tracks. It was called Wedderburn Station. As a 7 yr old, I use to visit there. The family had 5 girls. We played all through the woods and near the little houses, but no one lived in them. We'd chase chickens, ride their horse and sometimes hop a slow-moving freight train into town. The eldest daughter got married in 1967 and we had the reception at the house. That was the last time I was there and I was 20 at the time. [Christian Roberts, 08/10/2009]
Midgetville

Alas, this *historic* property will now be dubbed: "Razedville." Thanks to the ineptitude and selfishness of the Fairfax County board of supervisors, the new developer, much to the chagrin of the Vienna community, was allowed to clear every single tree (mostly old-growth oaks) on the entire property, leaving only the utility poles. Please come visit the new national landmark, which symbolizes a new world order (in this case at the county level) of uncompromising power and greed. [Disgusted, 07/22/2008]

[RA: A New World Order... with no room for midget homes!]
Midgetville

Midgetville is gone! The tiny houses were indeed real, but small people did not live in them. The land is being cleared as we speak by developers to build luxury homes. During high school, it was a favorite pastime to load up a car full of friends in the dark of night and venture in to Midgetville. We scared ourselves to death! [Helen, 06/08/2008]
Midgetville

Sadly the urban legend that was Midgetville in Vienna is now a dirt patch. The little cottages and the trees surrounding them have been destroyed and will be replaced with a bunch of soulless McMansions called Wehterbrun Estates or some such (sorry if you can see your neighbor in their shower, it's not an estate....but I digress). [Dave, 06/04/2008]
Midgetville

A Washington Post article from 2002 gives some good details on what is actually on the property and dispels the myths surrounding Midgetville.

It's an old, lightly developed resort that dates back to 1892. It was named "Midgetville" because of the farmer's market that was held there. Today, the cabins/houses are crumbling because the family who owns it can't afford the upkeep. It's most likely going to be redeveloped into a planned urban community, similar to what Ballston/Clarendon have become.

The owners get very angry when they catch trespassers. A pastime of local teenagers has been to race along the dirt roads throwing eggs and garbage at the old houses, trying to harrass the supposed "midgets." [Derek K, 06/16/2005]

MORE MEMORIES OF MIDGETVILLE



Midgetville - Do Not Go There

Do not go there. They are normal people, who get pissed at people driving through there. They are normal people -- no midgets, not worth the drive. [Syd Myd, 03/20/2005]

[RA: We appreciate the warning.]
Midgetville - Not populated by midgets

As a friend of the Wedderburn family I would like to make some clarifications. For all the rumors about supposed midgets or dwarves that live in the Wedderburn property, better known as Midgetville, there are no midgets or dwarves that live on the property, which was built over 100 years ago -- just normal people. In addition, any homeowner dislikes the idea of gawkers on their property vandalizing and trespassing, how is the Wedderburn family any different? The small cottages on the property are rented out just as a room or house is rented anywhere else. Yes, the land is currently being debated to become a modernized housing complex but real people live there, not weirdos or freaks as people like to claim. [Nancy, 11/25/2004]
Midgetville

I can confirm that Midgetville exists, as I was just there on June 1st. If you want to see it, you might want to look soon. There is a proposal from a couple of developers to demolish the half dozen tiny houses and replace them with about 20-something new houses. Some local residents oppose the re-development. You can view a couple of the tiny houses off of Wedderburn Lane in Vienna, which is near the Washington and Old Dominion trail and Cedar Lane. I have only looked at the houses from afar from the public street, because the dirt and gravel road that leads into the heart of the little enclave is off-limits and is posted "No Trespassing." It is an interesting little enclave of homes, and they are a piece of local history and folklore. [Anne, 06/25/2004]

[RA: September 2004 - Six tiny Spanish style cottages comprise the community known by locals as "Midgetville," in an area of wooded dirt paths and gravel roads. The property is scheduled to be cleared to make way for housing developments for regular-sized people.]
Midgetville

The place is real. It's across from Thoreau Middle School off Cedar Lane. Going north on Cedar, take a left on Wedderburn and you'll see some weird trees and two dirt roads that lead back, with some vandalized mailboxes out front. Story today that they're thinking of tearing it down. Very weird place. [Mike, 06/20/2004]
Midgetville

No, I've never been there, but if it's an urban legend, a LOT of people in the Washington, D.C. area have fooled themselves into believing they have been there. The subject comes up on radio shows every once in a while, and dozens of people call in to confirm it. Oh, and, understandably, the dwarfs (not midgets) there aren't too happy about gawkers, so be careful. [Alan, 09/15/2003]

"Midgetville" - For Midgets Only

A town with houses made for midgets...structures no taller than six feet. Has very small roads and the porch furniture looks like it's kid-size. If you are seen there by residents and are not a midget, they feel threatened and throw food and trash at your car. This happened to me! [jessica, 08/11/2001]

http://www.flickr.com/photos/8503162@N02/sets/72157600270358668/

These guy got some go pictures before the leveled midgetville.

From http://www.egoinc.org/mtarchives/2004/02/11/midgetville.html----

midgetville

copied from ridemonkey this morning: You know you're from Northern Virginia if...

also, i'm getting closer and closer to finding midgetville. success is in sight.

Posted by corey on February 11, 2004 02:56 PM | Permalink
Comments

That's some good stuff.

Senior year a group of us headed out on a serious hunt for Midgetville. We thought we saw some extra low mailboxes...but that's about it. It's one for the ages...

Posted by: Chris | February 12, 2004 10:51 AM

You are a fucking moron.

Posted by: Genius | February 12, 2004 05:30 PM

yeah, i'd be hard-pressed to disagree with you there.

Posted by: corey | February 12, 2004 05:57 PM

Wow...I was just kidding...woah. I thought this was a friendly place.

Posted by: Chris | February 12, 2004 06:27 PM

oh, i always assume anyone yelling 'dumbass' is talking to me. habit i guess.

Posted by: corey | February 15, 2004 01:03 PM

the midgetville in virginia is in either oakton or vienna. its basically across the street from Thoreau middle school, in the neighborhood across the street from there. for directions from tysons, take 123 towards vienna and make a left at the intersection where Southern States used to be (its no a bistro and something else, jammin java and the safeway are at that stoplight) make a left at that stoplight and take the road until it ends. make a left when it ends, make your 3rd left and go to the end of the road, youll see the no trespassing signs, youre there. be careful, ive had 3 midgets come after me with rocks, take a dumpy car when you go and dont go too fast, youll wake them up. also, dont go during the day, if they see you, theyll jump infront of your car. good luck! and go slow, if you dont mess with them, they wont wake up and wont see you. BEST OF LUCK IN MIDGETVILLE

Posted by: Bishop O'Connell Graduate | May 14, 2004 07:34 PM

The directions below are correct. This is, in fact, Mdgetville, VA. The name of the road is Wedderburn Lane.

Posted by: Thomas | June 23, 2004 05:19 PM

One time i went with my friends to midget vill and they were sitting in their yard and my friend threw his shoe and hit one in the head and they started chasing us and throwing rocks and such.
true story

Fuck stone bridge high school

Posted by: Greg | July 7, 2004 10:30 PM

Alright kids, the Midgetville legend gets better. I was there many years ago, and can confirm a secluded cluster of seven creepy tiny houses on Wedderburn. I recently had a renewed interest to see it again since the whole thing may be torn down for new houses. I went back with a friend just last night, and sitting across the entrance to the cul de sac was a police cruiser. The cop was just sitting there in his car, motor running, lights off. There is no chance he was there to do anything but guard the midgets as there is literally nothing else on this street. Hmmm, what are they hiding in Midgetville? This consiracy goes to the top top levels!

Posted by: Midget Hunter D | August 6, 2004 12:36 PM

In response to Greg, who throws a shoe at people? I can understand throwing something at a stalking coyote, but throwing a shoe at strangers? If I were gawking that badly at people, I'd want to keep my shoes on to actually run like hell away in embarrassment.

Posted by: Jenn | August 7, 2004 02:17 PM

yup, midgitville exists allright. tkae the derections above, and you might see a couple of the houses from the public road. i snuk in the coldesac and saw a dozen small, kinda ghetto houses. maby about 6 feet tall. doornobs are low, patio furniture is tiny. it was a night, so i dident see any midgits :( i heard they throw pebbles at you, so BE WARNED

Posted by: guest | August 23, 2004 05:07 PM

Hey Thomas...you're a dumbass!

First of all let's get something straight.
THERE ARE NO MIDGETS IN "THE VILLE"!!!

I'm 6'3" & I live there!
Everyone just grow the fuck up.
I know NOVA is boring, but god-damn go get laid instead of creeping around 100 year old homes.

- T

Posted by: TJ | August 26, 2004 01:20 PM

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A31856-2004Aug25.html

Posted by: Anonymous | September 26, 2004 01:04 PM

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A31856-2004Aug25.html

So you list the web address but don't tell everyone what this is... NICE. I live in "Midgetville", and want to stop the myth. This is an article from the Washington Post about the area everyone calls Midgetville, and the true story behind it. The basic idea is that the family is tired of idiots like you stirring up trouble, and want to leave. Please spread a little TRUTH. There ARE NO MIDGETS! Let us enjoy our little area in peace!

Posted by: Zimmydoom | October 7, 2004 11:18 AM

http://www.egoinc.org/mtarchives/2004/08/23/the_midget_saga_finale.html

a later post regarding the midgetville myth. do your homework.

Posted by: corey | October 7, 2004 12:18 PM

I GREW UP ON LOCUST DRIVE, JUST UP THE STREET FROM WEDDERBURN LANE. LIVED THERE 24 YRS. SORRY .. NO MIDGETS. I HOPE MY DAD AND EVERYBODY BACK IN MY OLD HOOD WIN THE FIGHT V. THE DEVELOPER THAT WANTS TO BUILD 900 HOMES THERE. FAIRFAX COUNTY ALREADY HAS PLENTY OF HOMES. TO THE DEVELOPER, YOU CAN KISS MY ASS !!!

Posted by: JIM | November 30, 2004 12:29 PM

I live in Southern Virginia and I kinda believe the myth and then again I don't yea sure the houses look wierd but . . .can you imagine how many rumors can be made about towns with freaky names . . hey well geuss what Virginia also has a Lynchburg and Mechanicsville.
I know for a fact there are midget 'communes' however midgetville does not appear to be one of them. Best of luck to everyone.

Posted by: Sony | February 26, 2005 03:20 AM

Well damn, if we didn't bag 4 midgets there last night. We did only tag and release them so we could monitor their progress and migrations in the wild. They seemed healthy enough and when the tranqualizer wore off they stubled back into their warrens.

Posted by: steve | March 1, 2005 10:55 AM

where the fuck is midgetville me and a couple of peoples want to Go.!...
if i make it i'll be back..to let u KNow..what went down

Posted by: Meira | March 16, 2005 11:07 PM

So what up hommies I got the low down on the Mig vil. It was built decades ago in order to house the gov't conspiracy of using midgets to drive bombs during WWII. Secretly though the midgets came up w/ their own conspiracy and came up w/ the land we refer to as migetville. The reason for all the hub bub is that it was the midgets cover to protect themselves, they secretly released info about midgetville to the foriegn press, so the Soviets would get wind of it and that the gov't would have to close up shop and the midgets could live in peace for generations to come.

Posted by: Trey | July 20, 2005 09:50 PM

we're survivers

Posted by: jdsn | July 24, 2005 09:39 PM

Hey, me and my boyfreind and brother went to Midgetville last night, and we drove thru the culde sac, and all we saw was LITTLE tiny houses and patios. It was so cool, i was so scared that one of em would wake up and chase me out wit a RIFLE. I heard they got rifles and chase you and will even shoot you. So do not go to midgetville during the day time, because i would be scared to. I went at 3am ish. They were sound a sleep then. I didnt stay long, I was too afraid they would wake up, since it has a NO TResspassing sign, and NEIGHBORHOOD Watch.

Posted by: Linda | October 20, 2005 09:20 PM

Best party I ever went to was in midgettville...No midgetts, but definately lots of wine and hop pocket. Those kids are tight, don't fuck with'm during this time of exodus. shout out to the blue mountain crew...

Posted by: The Dude | October 21, 2005 11:48 AM

man I went 2 midgetville durning da night and dat place was fucking scary. I hit dat place up @ 2:00 am and dat place was full of small houses. once u get there u better b w/ someone cause dem midgets will pop out of no where. da next i went at da same time and some of dem midgets were walking around and my dumass friend went out of da car and yelled fuck u midgets

Posted by: marcelo | January 16, 2006 12:44 AM

Ok, you want the truth? I went to Midgetville last night. Not the one in VA but the one in PA, the truth is that theres a ton of these midget compounds (they orginated in WWII). Anyway, the one I went to last night is truly the best. I dont want to post directions or the name of the commune because that takes all the fun out of the midget hunt. However, if you really are a die hard little people lover and need to find the place in order to catch and tame a midget, I can help. I will give you clues to get to "midgetville", (not the real name). Pmaganas@yahoo.com
ps its well worth the trip... little houses, little stop signs, little gazebos, super little playgrounds for super little kids.... god i wanna go back right now

Posted by: Pete | March 19, 2006 10:46 AM

I taught at Marshall HS for years....It's a mile or so away....We've been there. It's real! Most are achondroplastic.

Posted by: Joe | April 3, 2006 11:50 AM

I keep reading so many people saying there was never midgets in Midgetville, yet I read even more saying there were! Why are people so quick to claim no midgets ever lived there...the family that owned the place are likely the only source spreading the "no midgets" line. Therefore, what could they be hiding? Can't the real truth come out now that Midgetville is no longer there?

As an asside, I wonder how long it will be before we hear about the Wederburn homes being haunted by the ghosts of dead midgets that lived or were buried there.

check this out Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> http://www.flickr.com/photos/8503162@N02/sets/7215
> 7600270358668/
>
> These guy got some go pictures before the leveled
> midgetville.


Great pics, dude. Weren't you scarred that the police would get your ass when the place was no trespassing? I wish we had video and interviews with midgets that lived there.

HEY, YOU LITTLE BASTARDS! READ THE STORY BELOW AND UNDERSTAND WHY
THE PLACE HAD TO BE SOLD. I FEEL FOR THE WEDDBERBEN DESCENDANTS.
AND THE ARTICLE DOES NOT DISPEL THE RUMORS ABOUT MIDGETS!

WHAT I WONDER IS WHY IN THE HELL A DEAL COULDN'T BE WORKED OUT
SO THAT SOME OF THE LAND WAS DEVELOPED AND THE REST, WITH THE
SMALL HOUSES, WAS MADE INTO A PARK. VIENNA OR THE STATE SHOULD
HAVE PICKED UP THE TAB AND PAID THOSE FOLKS A FAIR MARKET VALUE
FOR A PORTION OF THAT LAND TO BE KEPT AS A HISTORICAL CURIOUSITY.
BASTARDS.


Emotional Investment
A Family’s Decision to Sell Vienna’s ‘Midgetville’ Ignites Bitter Opposition

By Jacqueline L. Salmon
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, August 26, 2004; Page VA16

“Midgetville†doesn’t look like a place over which a war is raging.

The eight acres along the Washington & Old Dominion trail in Vienna, overgrown with wild grapevines and ivy and populated by deer and foxes, are sheltered by towering pines, tulip poplars and mulberry trees.

Members of the family that has owned the land for more than 100 years still live there quietly in aged cottages scattered throughout the property. The diminutive dwellings have spawned an urban legend that they are the homes of midgets — hence the nickname.

But the family’s decision to sell the land to a developer has sparked an emotional battle in the Fairfax County neighborhood — and within the family itself.

Some homeowners in the vicinity say the proposed development ignores Midgetville’s rich history and would destroy an oasis in their midst.

“It’s basically been untouched for 70 years,†said David Levey, a resident of a nearby neighborhood who is leading opposition to the project. “It’s an absolute jewel of old Vienna.â€

So far, neighbors have managed to delay county approval of the project. A Planning Commission vote, set for June, has been postponed until later this year.

But descendants of the newspaper publisher who purchased the land more than a century ago now want to sell it to a developer for $4 million, and they angrily accuse neighbors and county officials of interfering with their property rights.

Beset by illness, struggling to afford the $14,000 annual property tax bills and tired of teenage vandals, the family members say the land has become a financial and emotional burden.

“Everybody has decided that the history stuff is more important than what reality is,†said Jane Nixon Leppin, a great-granddaughter of Alexander J. Wedderburn, publisher of the Alexandria Item, who purchased the property in 1892. It is now a wedge of land bordered by the W&OD trail on the north and Cedar Lane on the east.

“I understand that none of us likes change, and this county has gone through a lot of change,†Leppin said in a recent interview.

But, said Leppin, who owns the land with her three sisters, her family should not be made to pay for residents’ uneasiness with the rapid disappearance of undeveloped land in Fairfax.

“It breaks my heart to see it go,†said Leppin, who is also battling her own daughter, who opposes the sale of the family property. “But it’s going to have to go, because my family cannot support it anymore.â€

She began to weep.

The unbroken lineage of the Wedderburn land is remarkable in a county where most longtime land-holding families sold out decades ago to developers.

Indeed, the property is a throwback to an earlier, transformative time for Fairfax, when the rural county began evolving from an “agricultural hinterland to suburb,†according to a consultant’s report prepared for Elm Street Development Inc. of McLean, which wants to develop the Wedderburn land.

Wedderburn, who eventually owned about 300 acres in and around today’s Vienna, used the land now known as Midgetville for summer fairs for area farmers. A hotel and several cabins were already on the property when he purchased it. Along the north side of the Wedderburn property ran the Washington, Ohio and Western Railroad, which extended from Alexandria through Fairfax County, stopping at Wedderburn station along the way.

In the late 19th century, Fairfax was attracting increasing numbers of urban dwellers, who rode the rail line out to the bucolic county to escape the noisy, crowded District. Attracted by the clean air and green spaces, they stayed at the various resorts that dotted the railroad line. Wealthy Washington businessmen began building summer homes there.

With their cottages and hotel, the Wedderburn family catered to summertime clientele. Alexander Wedderburn even drew up plans to subdivide some of his land into 79 small lots for a community called Wedderburn Heights. He filed those plans with the county, although they never reached fruition.

The hotel burned down in 1901, according to historical accounts. But a two-story stucco home built on the property around the turn of the century is still there today, barely visible behind a wall of greenery to passing bicycle riders along the W&OD trail.

The property was passed down through the Wedderburn family. In the 1930s, one of Alexander Wedderburn’s sons, George, built six small, one-story Spanish-style rental cottages that still stand. According to family lore, he furnished them with pianos because he loved music.

Polly Wedderburn Nixon, daughter of Alexander’s son Augustus, inherited the property in 1944. When Nixon died in 1995, it passed to her four daughters — Jane Nixon Leppin, Eloise Nixon Jones, Nan Nixon and Pollyanne Marcieski.

The property has been virtually unchanged for decades. A dozen small dwellings — half of them tumbledown and uninhabited — nestle under a towering canopy of trees.

Jane Leppin lives in one of the cottages, and one of her daughters, Janel Wedderburn Leppin, occupies another. The family rents out several others to artists, musicians and coffee-shop workers.

But Jane Leppin said that ownership of the land became increasingly difficult over the years because of mounting property taxes, vandals and the rising cost of upkeep on the dwellings.

In fact, the family dislikes the “Midgetville†nickname because for decades the legend of the area has attracted teenage “midget hunters†who invade the property late at night to race their cars along the narrow dirt road encircling the compound, honking their horns and throwing bottles, eggs and other trash at the homes.

Once, a rock crashed through her mother’s window, Leppin said, just missing the elderly woman.

Years ago, she said, Polly Nixon began exploring selling the land and sought the advice of Fairfax developer John T. “Til†Hazel. He urged Nixon to sell the land as quickly as possible, said Leppin. Otherwise, she said, Hazel warned that “everybody who moves in around you will think that your trees are their trees, and the longer you are there, the more they will insist that the trees stay.â€

The Wedderburn sisters signed a deal with a developer that ultimately fell through. In 2002, they signed one with Elm Street Development, agreeing to sell the land to the McLean firm if Elm Street could get the approvals for a residential project.

Elm Street teamed with Falls Church developer JCE Inc., which owns five acres adjacent to the property.

The original development plans for the combined 13 acres called for 29 homes, up to 6,000 square feet each, on quarter-acre lots clustered on the site, with two large areas left undeveloped and a buffer along the W&OD trail — totaling about four acres of open space. Developers pledged to landscape along the property line of the W&OD trail to screen the homes’ rear yards from the trail. The county Planning Commission staff had recommended approval of the original plan.

But opponents say that the amount of open space is exaggerated, since one of those areas is actually for a storm water management pond. In all, they say, the project crams too many homes on the land compared with surrounding neighborhoods, which feature smaller homes spread across half-acre lots.

“It’s too big,†said Levey. “What we’re seeing . . . is ignoring the history and the topography of the site.â€

Some government bodies have also expressed concern about the project.

The Northern Virginia Regional Park Authority has said that the buffer area between the homes and the bike trail property line — in some places just 30 feet — is inadequate. And the town of Vienna says it is concerned about the increased traffic load on its streets.

In June, the developers withdrew their plan and said they would resubmit a joint proposal within the next few weeks that they hope will resolve some of the concerns of opponents of the project.

But zoning lawyer Greg Riegle, a spokesman for the project, pointed out that the developers’ original proposal calls for an average of just over two homes an acre — about the same as, or less than, the density of surrounding neighborhoods. It is less than what is shown on the county’s comprehensive plan, which calls for two to three dwelling units an acre there.

“We think — and have always thought — that these 29 houses fit well into the community,†said Riegle.

The land is zoned for one home an acre, and opponents are organizing an effort to get the county’s comprehensive plan reduced to that level on the property.

James Perry, a principal with Elm Street Development, said the density of the proposed project “is in the middle of what is already out there†in the surrounding communities.

But the developers, who met with homeowners in May, have failed to mollify neighbors. Two dozen neighboring homeowners urged county planning commissioners at a May public hearing to reject the deal. Residents have also met with Supervisor Linda Q. Smyth (D-Providence) and Providence planning commissioner Kenneth A. Lawrence to lobby against the project.

“It would change the entire complexion of the area,†said Stu Vogt, who has lived in a neighborhood adjoining the property since 1966.

“I don’t think you can hold up progress,†added Ruth Zeul, who has lived nearby since 1957. “But I would like to see it less dense, or not with such big houses on small lots.â€

Janel Wedderburn Leppin, who was raised on the property, also strongly opposes the sale, said Jane Leppin. The family’s insistence on going through with the deal has seriously strained the relationship with her daughter, she said. “We argue about this: How fair is it for a family to have invested their life in a property and then need to get that livelihood out of that property?†asked Leppin.

Janel Leppin refused to comment about the sale. But last month she started a music school — the Wedderburn School of Music — on the site.

Her mother is skeptical that her daughter’s efforts will succeed in keeping the land in the family.

“She has some lovely ideas, but you have to make them come to reality,†said Leppin.

Leppin said a major factor pushing the sale is the expense associated with a genetic kidney ailment — polycystic kidney disease — that runs in her family.

Leppin undergoes kidney dialysis at home four times a day and needs a kidney transplant. She and her husband had hoped to use their share of the proceeds of the sale of the Wedderburn land to buy a home closer to the Johns Hopkins medical facility in Baltimore where she will go eventually for a kidney transplant. They also want to set aside some money in case any of their children contract the disease.

But now, she said, neighbors and foot-dragging county officials are destroying those hopes.

“The way we’re looking at it now,†she said bitterly, “we’ll be lucky if it’s another two years†before the family project is approved.

“I am just furious at the community as a whole right now,†she said. “To me, it’s like a bunch of tigers out there.â€

© 2004 The Washington Post Company

cswiii @ 2:57 am
8 Responses to ““Midgetvilleâ€â€

1. Paul Martin Says:
September 7th, 2004 at 2:07 pm

Having known many people (including the Nixon’s) who have lived in and loved “The Wedderburn†since the 1950’s, it was heartening to know a happy place of my youth still exists. Even for a short time.
2. ?????!!!!! Says:
October 14th, 2005 at 11:45 am

where it be at?????!!!!! U GotZ to tellz me NOWZ!!!! reach me first
3. ryme Says:
October 22nd, 2005 at 8:58 am

yo i heard midgetville waz hot i might go der 2 fuk all ya midgets over der iigh so be prepared
4. jrock Says:
October 22nd, 2005 at 9:04 am

yo midgetville waz goog ni99s u probably seen me already i waz da 1 who broke ya midgets windows lolz dat shyt waz so funny
5. scarecrow Says:
October 22nd, 2005 at 9:21 am

wen i find dat place me an my boy ryme r gona bomb ya ni99as wit rocks an bats
6. Mary Twiford Says:
December 2nd, 2007 at 2:06 pm

Wow, bet you never receive a letter like this…In July, 1946, my late husband, Capt. Carl Twiford, resting in Arlington now, and I, rented a small cottage like this site mentioned. We were newlyweds.Carl worked in the District, but I was a homemaker, and our older son, Terry {a former Marine} , was born there. We were there, maybe 15 months, before moving to MD, on the Potomac..They were delightful days, cool, beartifully treed, and as I walked out the front door, the Old Dominion RR tracks were there..I know the area has done a 360 degree change, {Tyson’s corner}, but I well remember Mr .Wedderburn..As a matter of fact, I THINK I left some books there for the next occupant…I remember the kitchen oven, in which a baked mouse popped out one AM. What fun we had, and MARVELOUS memories..I am writing because, I do volunteer work here, trying to slow down the tremendous concretization of our FL. county..It corresponds with what YOU are trying to do…Your Environmental Protection officials should be able to help. Do let me know how you are coming with the {hopefully}, restoration, or preservation.. So nice to have found you all on Google..Mary Twiford, Ruskin, FL.
7. Dana Holland Says:
December 19th, 2007 at 3:57 pm

I became interested in this property recently through a friend at work. I live near the Wedderburn’s old property site. It stands abandoned and the road is chained up with signs on it. The property was sold to Elm St Developers, the same I believe who developed the Evans Farm Inn site by removing the farm and putting up mega million dollar plus mansions.

This lovely little low land will soon to be more such land stripped of its lovely trees and probably filled in with fill dirt to build more mega mansions with no trees around them. Just what we need here right? I wrote to the Governor’s office and a writer for the Governor wrote a two page letter with his explanations about how this site is not a historical site and per zoning laws… it will be developed and you know how it goes — just that it goes. More land, more trees, more animal life and more history, gone except preserved in photos and books perhaps. It would be wonderful for someone in the Wedderburn/Nixon/Leppin family to memoralize their family history in this area and their pursuit of property in a book some day. It is very hard to let a piece of property go like that but it is also hard to maintain it in this day and age of ever increasing TAXES!!! To all the birds, and owls and wildlife in “Midgetville†of Wedderburn Heights, goodluck in finding a new home and thank you for gracing our neighborhoods for years past. This would have made a lovely garden and park for Vienna but I guess just as it is not of “historical†importance it is not of “park†importance either to our local government.
8. Mary Twiford Says:
July 11th, 2008 at 11:37 pm

July 11, 2008..Mary Twiford, Ruskin, Fl.,
Just tuned in again.. I hope this situation has been adjudicated amicably by now, and that the lady has had successful medical treatment..It takes brains and heart to solve the impasse….I remember the happy days there from June,1946 for about a year or so, and I am emailing my son, who was born while we lived there among the cool trees, to Google this and learn a bit about his first year. Here, in Florida, I do volunteer work, with a group which works hard to slow down some of the concretization of our land..I wish the best for all.

haunting from angry dead midgets.cool.

>
> As an asside, I wonder how long it will be before
> we hear about the Wederburn homes being haunted by
> the ghosts of dead midgets that lived or were
> buried there.

Wow, I too heard stories of midgetville when I was school. All I knew was it was off cedar lane. One day I went looking for it and no luck. Eventually after going down streets off of cedar I came across the cottages and a gravel road with no tresspassing signs. I was too afraid to go down the road, afraid they would throw rocks at my car. I did get to see the homes but didn't see any midgets.

It's sad to see that it is torn down now, Seems like everything is getting torn down and new homes and buildings everywhere. I used to work in the Pan Am shopping center when in college and now all the woods are gone and something is going up. Also by the vienna metro...

So where are the midgets now??

When this shit happen

Skyler Wrote:
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> When this shit happen

long ago. Here is a pic of a midgetville house that I got from my dad. I grew up on Park street and remember Midgetville well. Kickin myself for not taking more pics of that place. The man in the pic was a local guy who my dad said was 6ft 3 in tall.
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This is a good thread.

was

the site is adjacent to the wod railroad the most convenient way to get there from DC

Funny to see the story of Midgetville here - didn't know it was demolished.

I went to Midgetville twice in high school to check it out. Admittedly it was rude to go back there and drive around the gravel loop right in front of these houses but both times we really were just going back to check it out. We weren't honking horns or yelling or being disruptive beyond just driving through.

First time an enraged 30 something year old ran out in front of the car and started yelling and screaming and punched the car as we swerved to get around him. The driver hit a sharp rock while trying to get around the guy and blew out a tire.

Second time was a convoy of several cars and a different guy came out yelling and screaming and hollering and this one actually jumped on the hood of the last car, clambered up onto the roof and hung onto the sunroof until the car was back out on that main paved road nearby. He ended up rolling off when the car slowed down to 10-15 mph. Crazy shit.

Anyway, Midgetville may not have started out as a weird place but I gather enough dumb teenagers went back there that the residents were on a hair trigger.

Recent aerial photo of what was once Midgetville, a town just for little people.
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Aaah, youth Wrote:

>
> First time an enraged 30 something year old ran
> out in front of the car and started yelling and
> screaming and punched the car as we swerved to get
> around him. The driver hit a sharp rock while
> trying to get around the guy and blew out a tire.
>
> Second time was a convoy of several cars and a
> different guy came out yelling and screaming and
> hollering and this one actually jumped on the hood
> of the last car, clambered up onto the roof and
> hung onto the sunroof until the car was back out
> on that main paved road nearby. He ended up
> rolling off when the car slowed down to 10-15 mph.
> Crazy shit.


Had the same thing happen in the early 80's, only it was a midget that jumped out/on the car. At least he looked like a midget, that's what I remember....we probably hadn't been drinking/smoking.....

Wedderburn Wrote:
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> Recent aerial photo of what was once Midgetville,
> a town just for little people.

It is now McMansionville, full of hideous brick colonials.

I hate brick colonials

Ariel Photos

1997 and 1937.

Nice detail in the 37 pic.

.
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So where on those aerial pictures are the cottages?

Is there a perimeter road?

Can someone who knows annotate the pictures?

I lived in the Wedderburn back in the late 80s and early 90s. If that road on the right is Cedar ln, then the cross looking feature about mid way is probably the gardens in the back of the main house. I lived in this house for about 3 years until it suffered a fire after a particularly well attended Halloween party in which we removed the wood stove and used the fire place. Bad idea. The house was a beautifulSpanish Villa style house with gorgeous gardens in the back, lots of boxwood hedges, flag stone walk ways, fountains, etc. Most of it was in need of lots of attention by then but it was still a very magical place. The house was a stucco structure with ornate columns at the entrance and big windows in every room. The roof was a parapet type roof. The neighborhood was built around a large grassy area, surrounded by HUGE evergreen trees that we used to call "The Beauty Spot". This was where we had many a grand bon fire, pumpkin carving party, full moon parties and of course private parties of just two. there was about 8 houses in all, 1 on them was a normal old house on the bike path, (railroad tracks), the others were all hand built by George Wedderburn. Some were built of mortar and bottles, others were built on old tree stumps, I also lived in the one at the entrance to the neighborhood that was was just a very modest 1 bedroom stucco house with a pitched roof. Lots of good crab feasts in that front yard. Darn shame that they had to take all of it down. The white oaks were amazing. I saw the new place last month while visiting. I don't think they will have halloween parties like we did. Oh well.

A really outstanding post.
Brought me back to way back when.
I first saw this place about 71 -72
Several of the smaller houses remained and their inhabitants we're indeed tiny.
The general layout was still visible and I wondered what the story was. It backed up to the by then abandoned W& OD Railroad which was a gravel road which went from Alexandria to Round hill . Quite the playground for motocross bikes of the day. We had a little posse that ran it's length popping up in various communities at their abandoned train stations. Many abandoned farms along the route expanded the playground further.
Hard to imagine now but only 45 years.
I'm sort of happy I don't have to look at what it's become.

ThePackLeader Wrote:
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LOL, man, all of the stories I have about that place from High School. I remember the one where they threw bricks at a friend's car, and here he was, this huge linebacker, running around like Godzilla trying to kick the Midgets. He managed to grab one and toss him into the Trees.

You can't make this shit up!

.

d