Welcome to small town America…

While most little people live in regular-sized houses like the rest of us, legends of little people villages still linger across the U.S. and beyond. Here are the real stories behind these rumored societies of the small around the world.  

Connecticut Little People Village

This spot sits dilapidating in the woods of Middlebury, CT. It’s a village of stone dwellings similar in size to dollhouses. Two legends circulated for years: one claimed a man built it for this wife, who saw fairy figures, and another involved a man hearing voices commanding him to build. The truth: The structures were part of Lake Quassy Amusement Park in the early 20th century, visitable only by trolley line. As you can see from the photo, these would have to have been very little people, indeed. (Photo source)

Kentucky Midgetville

In the boonies south of Louisville lies a supposed little people community. There sit thirty or so tiny cottages built high on a hill with an odd-looking church. Several stories swirl around its true purpose, though the real explanation seems to be that it is a commune for a set of average-stature Jehovah’s Witnesses who live in the small one room houses. The “Weird Kentucky” book maintains a real and true little people community does indeed exist in an undisclosed trailer park elsewhere in the state. (Photo Source)

 

 

Mississauga, Ontario

The rumored Midgetville has a handful of houses and a playground in the Streetsville section of Mississauga, in southwest of Toronto. The site is reportedly protected by a fence and alarm. The homes sit arranged in a semi-circle buffered by trees close to standard-sized houses.  Beyond this little is known. However everyone will get a chance to find out as doors will be opened to the public for the first time on October 1, 2011 as a heritage event. (Hint: Don’t expect to see little people.)

 

 

 Jefferson, NJ, Midgetville

Apparently Snooki isn’t the only pintsize peculiarity to come out of Jersey. A rural area of Jefferson Township is the rumored home of a little person ‘hood. The layout: six tiny abodes with miniature windows and doors. The story goes that the property once belonged to Ringling Brothers, whose little people performers set up shop there. The ironic truth is that these little people homes were for the most part summer vacation homes built in the seventies. They only look so small because they are now “dwarfed” by the McMansions that surround them. Police reportedly patrol the area heavily now thanks to visiting vandals. (Photo Source)

 

 

 

Chinese Village 

There is, in fact, one little people village that does indeed exist. Back in 2009, some small folk in southern China made their own community in the mountain area of Kunming. Their reason? To end ridicule and discrimination from others. You must be under 4 feet 3 inches tall to live in the village, and the more than 120 residents live autonomously with their own diminutive police and firefighting forces. Then they defeated their goal of isolation by constructing mushroom houses and donning fairytale costumes, which, naturally, drew curious tourists in droves.