For Christmas I received a great book,
Weird U.S.: Your Travel Guide to America's Local Legends and Best Kept Secrets by Mark Moran and Mark Sceurman. Immediately I flipped through it to find anything about San Diego, and soon came across the legend of Midgetville.
Midgetville refers to the legend of a town consisting of scaled-down houses built for little people. Midgetville is said to exist in various places throughout America. As Moran and Sceurman note, the most credible rumor locates such a town in
Jefferson Township, New Jersey, on the former estate of circus mogul Alfred T. Ringling. There really is a collection of small-sized houses there that could conceivably have once been home to a colony of midgets. However, another
very persistent legend locates a Midgetville in San Diego.
Moran and Sceurman don't go into much detail about the San Diego Midgetville, but I realized that I had heard this legend before (my wife had also heard it). This is how it goes: back in the 1930s a group of little people who had made a lot of money in Hollywood appearing in movies such as
The Wizard of Oz supposedly came down to San Diego and built a collection of miniature houses on Mt. Soledad where they could live in comfort together. But of course, nobody seems to know exactly where on Mt. Soledad this group of small houses was or is, though everybody has heard of a "friend of a friend" who once accidentally found the houses (though this FOAF can never remember how to get back there).
Determined to find the houses, I did a google search and came across
an article from 2003 written by Kenneth Smith for the
Daily Aztec detailing his own efforts to track down San Diego's fabled 'Munchkin Houses'. After many false starts, he finally discovered that they were most probably "a group of four cottages on Hillside Drive in La Jolla... built by
famed architect Cliff May." Although no midgets or little people were ever known to live in these houses, Smith says that, "The houses do indeed have smallish features, accentuated by an optical illusion. The steep road that passes them makes them seem even smaller than they actually are." Unfortunately only one of the four cottages remains standing, but Smith provides directions to find it: "take Hillside Drive from Torrey Pines Road. The house will be on your left-hand side. Look for the crazy midget handwriting." He also mentions that if you peek through the window (the house is unoccupied) you'll see "cobblestone-like tiled floors and a little round fireplace."
Of course, I had to see this for myself, even if no colony of Wizard-of-Oz midgets had ever lived there. So on New Year's Day I convinced my wife to accompany me on a search for the Munchkin House. The results were mixed. It was no problem finding Hillside Drive, but as it turns out Hillside Drive is fairly long. We were driving up and down it (as a line of cars formed behind us) wondering 'exactly which house on the left did he mean.' None of the houses leaps out at you and screams 'Munchkin House.' But finally we settled on one house that we figured must be it: Seventy-Four Seventy-Seven Hillside Drive. It had
small windows and a small door. Plus, the address written beside the door looked a bit like
'crazy midget handwriting' (though I think Smith was joking about this). Ignoring the
'No Trespassing' sign (even though part of the legend of Midgetville is that the midgets who live there fiercely defend their land from the Bigs), I peeked through the window and saw the
cobblestone-like tiled floors and a little round fireplace. So I think I found the Munchkin House, though I'm not 100% sure. It's certainly not anything that would catch your attention if you weren't specifically looking for it since it's really not that small, which made the trip a bit disappointing. But the weird thing is, I've already forgotten how to get back there.
Comments
http://jesthestar.deviantart.com/
MIDGETVILLE was a real place you were able to go to. it was off of the exit LA SIERRA on the 91. head south for about 3 miles then there came a road it was dirt . You turned right off of the road onto the dirt path . now mind you this is a driveway for people who lived off the main road. you could not drive up to it you had to park and walk down the hill, clinb over the barb wire then you were in MIDGETVILLE. There was a stable for horses, a creek ran on the back side of the cabin which looked like a farm house. there was 4-5 houses that were along what looked like there was a street at one point and time. I can remember alot of details about MIDGETVILLE. One house was 2 (two ) stories with a basement now these houses are so small the average human ( me being 6'2") cant get in them. One house even had hand prints with there last name written in the front porch. if you hav any questions email me at : .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)
I'm not sure if i think there are actually midgets. However, i do believe there are people there, and they don't want anyone else there.
first of all, the neighborhood is called Bixby Knolls.
Del mar, the street behind los cerritos park, continues north and dead ends into a loop. right before that dead end, there is a black gate on the left side onto virginia vista rd. this is the entrance to midget town.
http://maps.google.com/maps?f=d&hl=en&geocode=8290736874160144129,33.830970,-118.202690&saddr=33.826728,-118.189341&daddr=Del+Mar+Ave+@33.830970,+-118.202690&mra=mi&mrsp=0,1&sz=17&sll=33.826737,-118.189352&sspn=0.003485,0.007296&ie=UTF8&ll=33.828056,-118.197216&spn=0.003485,0.007296&t=h&z=17&om=0
here are directions from the intersection of long beach blvd and bixby rd.
some of the previous comments do not refer to midget town.
La Linda Drive is a small oval off bixby rd, it is gated, but it is NOT midget town.
http://maps.google.com/maps?f=d&hl=en&geocode;=&saddr;=&daddr=33.826772,-118.190526&mra=mi&mrsp=0&sz=18&sll=33.82679,-118.190516&sspn=0.001742,0.003648&ie=UTF8&t=h&z=18&om=0
The black gate off virginia rd is the entrance to the country club. there are houses on the golf course along country club drive and virginia rd, these are the fanciest. also, midget town and another gated community accessed from long beach blvd north of san antonio is on the golf course.
http://maps.google.com/maps?f=d&hl=en&geocode=9326943009900593460,33.841006,-118.191792&saddr=W+Glenchester+Dr+@33.841006,+-118.191792&daddr=33.840621,-118.191648&mra=mi&mrsp=1,0&sz=18&sll=33.840693,-118.19153&sspn=0.001742,0.003648&ie=UTF8&ll=33.840867,-118.191776&spn=0.001742,0.003648&t=h&z=18&om=0
ITs CREEPY!!
Check out mine and Chuck Mencke's post on Feb 6 and Tommy's posts on July 9th and 13th. That is where Midget Village in Fort Worth used to be anyway. That area, including my old street, has changed very little in the past 40 or so years. BTW, I knew a Russell at Burton Hill elementary, I am now 49.
Just phoned my mom to see if she remembered the Midget Village by our house on Santa Marie, why I haven't done this before escapes me. Anyway, she did remember and said the story back then was that it was built by the land owner in honor of his son whom was killed. I google earthed the exact location following the directions given by Tommy and it is still there. I have just shown my wife all this and she wants to drive out this Sat. and look at it. I'll let you know what I find out.
It is in National City. Right by Sweet Water High School. The house's are not very small but they do look smaller than other houses. The door's are a little smaller and the windowns too. Also the sizes of the house's are really small. They say that there use to be a lot of little people living there but now there is only a couple since it is rare for two little people to make another little person. Usually they have children that are normal sized. Anyways. To get there you take the 54 and exit highland. go onto sweet water road and make a right at the KFC then you make left at the second stop light. Probably by toys R us. Then just drive around and you can view all the house's. There is a little secret abandoned dwarf town in the area. It's on K street or ave or w/e iono map quest it. There is going to be an alley and you'll see a sign with all their adresses. Down the alley you can see a small miniature little town even with a gas station a blacksmith shop and a barber shop. It's really neat and you should take time to visit. Although you cannot go into the alley since it says no trespassing...I always do and look around. The place is desserted and old and they've knocked down a lot of the buildings and it's all thats left. :(
and directions pleaseee.
http://www.bscmai.org/
Wonder no more about the midget town on the border of PA and DE
http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&geocode;=&q=periwinkle+lane+&+e.+valley+rd&sll=34.435938,-119.629869&sspn=0.008813,0.015428&ie=UTF8&ll=34.437018,-119.62944&spn=0.008813,0.015428&t=h&z=16&iwloc=addr
It's just off the 101 Freeway. When you drive by the road has a sign calling it "Hodges Lane," conceivably to keep out those searching for Periwinkle Lane. There's about 15 miniature houses.
There was also a rumor of a Midgetville in Alamance County, North Carolina. When I was in college near Chapel Hill, we drove to this place that was rumored to have little people climbing the trees at night throwing rocks at intruders. Of course nothing happened. Anyone know anything about that?
sadly, midgetville in vienna, virginia is no more, the last of the houses (even the trees!) have succumbed to the bulldozers of the developers :(
i have pics at my myspace page (myspace.com/norotik) of the desolation. as a slap in the face the destruction crews placed one of the large brick entrance gate structures on top of a huge gravel heap. fuckers! go here --> http://www.keepmidgetville.com/ to see what it USED TO look like before the bastards tore it down.
i thank any of those that wrote letters and emails to try and stop the carnage but i guess the greed of the developers was too great a force to battle.
http://www.sandiegohistory.org/calpac/35expo99.htm
And there's some postcard pictures of the "midget village" here:
http://www.sandiegohistory.org/calpac/cardlist/midget.htm
This certainly accounts for certain elements of the story such as the location (San Diego), the time period (the '30's), and why nobody has been able to be able to find the real "village" since...
As for the Long Beach location, my boss who has lived in Long Beach his whole life 1) has always heard that the place is real, but 2) has personally been to most of the neighborhoods posted on this comment thread and can confirm that they are NOT midget villages (he seems to think the 'real' midget village was demolished years ago, and is going to ask his parents if they know anything about it). And I have played golf at Virginia Country Club, and can assure you that the houses built along the golf course are NOT designed for midgets, but rather for giant egos...
i have to include that i did not read all the comments above
About the story of the four bridges, I only ever found three and don't believe there are four.
-Sty