Welcome to Hell

Welcome to Hell
Originally uploaded by littledevilworks.

I officially declare this "Little Devil Works Day".

I would like to begin by introducing you to Hell, Michigan.

Hell, Michigan is an unincorporated community in Livingston County in the U.S. state of Michigan. Hell has a population of 266. (Funny, I thought it would be a LOT more than that, with all the politicians!)

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).

According to the town's semiofficial Web site, there are two leading theories about how Hell got its name.

The first holds that a pair of German travelers stepped out of a stagecoach one sunny afternoon in the 1830s, and one said to the other, "So schön und hell!" - roughly translated as, "So bright and beautiful." Their comments were overheard by some locals and the name stuck.

The second holds that George Reeves was asked after Michigan gained statehood what he thought the town he helped settle should be called, and reportedly replied, "I don't care, you can name it Hell if you want to." The name became official on October 13, 1841.

Some fun facts about Hell:

• Hell's main export is, appropriately, kitsch. It has a "fully non-accredited" college that sells singed diplomas, a motorcycle dealership, and an ice cream parlor.
  
• In the early 1930s, Pinckney, MI postmaster W. C. Miller began to receive requests from stamp and postmark collectors for cancellations: Hell had no post office, and Pinckney was barely three miles away. On July 15, 1961, a postal substation was established at Hell. (It remains today, at the back of the general store.)
  
• Hell Creek runs through town, and through a small dam; a bar next to the creek is known as "The Dam Site Inn".
  
• Hell also sponsors a running event called "Run Thru Hell 10 mile and 4.8 mile race." Each participant is given a T-shirt that says "I Ran Thru Hell".
  
• Kiwanis International chartered the Kiwanis Club of Hell, Michigan on December 15, 2001 as the Michigan District's first Internet club. The club meets in private AOL chatroom, "Kiwanis Online."
  
• Meterologists often reference the temperature in Hell, Michigan... they LOVE to mention that it is a "cold day in Hell."
• There is a post office substation in the convenience store and they will remail letters for you with the official "Hell" cancellation of the stamp. This service is apparently popular around mid-April when some folks have their tax return forwarded from Hell. You must attach appropriate postage to the article to be remailed and then place the item to be remailed in another larger envelope and mailed to "Postmaster, Hell, MI" with the appropriate zip code and postage on the container envelope.

Try here for a little more Hell-ish mayhem.