Legend Traveling
In Jeffrey Debies-Carl’s conspiracy legends article in the November/December 2017 Skeptical Inquirer, I was struck by the author’s statement that, “Inspired by a legend, a person may travel to the alleged site of a story to investigate its validity directly.” I have an interesting experience in that regard. In my neighbor-hood in Vienna, Virginia, was a small group of homes locally called “Midgetville.” The houses were built during an era when the adjacent railroad was operating, and they were used as a weekend escape from the heat of Washington, D.C. The area was called Midgetville not because midgets lived there but because the motley collection of houses was very small. On one occasion, I spoke to some people who had heard the legends about the place and had traveled all the way from Canada to see the midgets. They were quite disappointed that their long trip was in vain. Wiki-pedia has an article on Midget-villes in other locations.