Hell, Michigan
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Location of Hell, Michigan
Hell, Michigan is an unincorporated community in Livingston County in the U.S. state of Michigan. The community is in Putnam Township near the border with Washtenaw County about 20 miles northwest of Ann Arbor at Template:Coor dms. Hell claims a population of 266 and the ZIP Code is 48169.
For several hundred years, the low, swampy area was occupied mostly by the Potawatomi tribe. Later, in the early 19th century, it was the most unpleasant part of a trail between Lansing and Dexter (which at the time contained a major farmers market) and a point on the route taken by traders portaging between the Huron River and the Grand River.
In the late 1830s, George Reeves, a New York farmer, started several businesses in the area — a general store, and a mill, and a distillery — which became the core of a minor population center; by the 1840s, enough people had immigrated to make a 70-person school viable (assuming 19th century birth rates, this pegs the population somewhere close to its current level).
In 1841, as the story goes, Reeves was asked what he wanted the town to be called and responded, "I don't care, you can name it Hell if you want to." His later attempts to rechristen it Reevesville or Reeve's Mills proved futile.
Hell's main export is, appropriately, kitsch. Among other things, it has a "fully non-accredited" college, Damnation University (DamU for short) that sells half-singed diplomas, a small post office in the back of the general store, a motorcycle dealership, and an ice cream parlor. Hell Creek runs through town, and a bar next to the small dam across the creek is known as "The Dam Site Inn".
External links
- Hell, Michigan (http://www.hell2u.com/)
- Has Hell frozen over? (http://www.wunderground.com/cgi-bin/findweather/getForecast?query=48169) (current temperature in Hell/Pinckney)
- The Hell trailblazer (http://carcino.gen.nz/images/index.php/5922d576/15913492/)