December 23, 2016
Tiny Town Documentary/YouTube
Title card for the 'Tiny Town' documentary about the 'Midgetville' urban legend in Delaware County.
A group of students at Temple University explore the roots of an urban legend in Delaware County in a new mini documentary titled "Tiny Town."
The documentary, published to YouTube Monday, interviews local officials, historians and residents about the origins of "Midgetville," a purported community of people with dwarfism living in a wooded area of Ridley Park.
Interviewed in the documentary is the Delco News Network's Peg DeGrassa, who wrote about the legend in 2014 and noted the "politically incorrect" name of "Midgetville."
For a little background, here's an excerpt from her article, which she said got tens of thousands of hits the day it was published online:
From all the way back when I was in high school, cars full of kids would go searching for the elusive Midgetville. It couldn’t be an urban legend, generation after generation reason as they set out on the grand search. Too many people know about it and talk about it for it not to be real, they figure. Plus, there’s something just plain fun and thrilling to search for something as “Wizard of Ozish” as a neighborhood of little people. As a teen, the search was kind of scary in an adrenaline-thrilling way too, because there were always rumors circulating that the little people throw rocks at any outsiders who come on the street. The rock hurling sounds ridiculous to me now, but somehow the rumor was believable when I was in high school with a larger imagination.
You can watch "Tiny Town" below, and you can read more about the legend in DeGrassa's article here.
