In search of Anne Arundel County's "Midgetville"

According to Matt Lake's Weird Maryland, somewhere in Anne Arundel County there exists a town made up entirely of midgets, or little people as they prefer to be called now for some reason. Lake wrote that according to the story:

A group of circus folk retired from the Big Tent and used their show business earnings to build a town to suit them. The houses were said to be perfectly proportioned but tiny. The streets were built to a small person's scale. While Midgetville is always located on the outskirts of a regular town, hidden so that the locals couldn't disturb them, someone always seems to know someone who's been there. And on a dull night, groups of people always decide they want to go there to check it out.

But take caution. When you drive to the outskirts of the settlement, they say, a car (often described as a white or black pickup) will chase you and attempt to run you off the road. Or worse, crowds of tiny people armed with rocks and baseball bats and shotguns will come after you, hell-bent on doing you and your car some serious damage.

Lake reported a tale from a woman who claimed that in the 1980s a friend from Glen Burnie drove her out to such a location, but that she doesn't remember exactly where it is now.

I was intrigued by the idea that somewhere hidden in Anne Arundel County there was a village full of angry little people and set out to find this so-called Midgetville.

After asking various people who were from that part of town and more familiar with the local history, I was able to determine that Midgetville was located not in Glen Burnie, but nearby Pasadena. To be more exact, it was located near what is now Tall Oaks restaurant on Colony Road.

Conrad looking for Midgetville

I drove out there with my friend, Conrad Bladey, who is also a subject of Weird Maryland,to check the area out. We ate at Tall Oaks restaurant where the waitress confirmed that Midgetville was once in the area, but the last of the little people left some time ago, perhaps around the late 1980s. She said that the last little house had survived until recently when it was torn down to make for a big gated community nearby.

Do angry midgets live here and chase away outsiders? Sadly, no.

We ate our lunch and had a few beers before leaving. Driving around the neighborhood we still kept an eye out for small houses and people in the hope that she was mistaken about them all leaving. Sadly, she was not. There were no midgets to be found.

Nevertheless, I haven't lost all hope. According to Matt Lake, similar little towns may still exist in Cecil County, somewhere along the Potomac River west of DC, and either on the eastern shore or in Delaware. I will keep searching. If I mysteriously disappear, look in those places first.

Update - October 4, 2015 -

Searching the newspaper archives online, I found this classified ad from The Capital newspaper on April 2, 2003.

This is additional confirmation that "Midgetville" once existed there, but no longer does.