Skip to main content

Great Lakes Road Trip Day 12; to Hell and back

I didn't have much to do on the 28th given that all had done well with the loop of the Great Lakes and knocking out two additional National Parks.  That being the case I decided to go to Hell which was pretty might right around the corner on County Route D32, you might say it is a "highway to Hell."






Of course the Hell I'm referring to is Hell, Michigan.  Hell is located in Livingston County a couple miles southwest of Pinckney to be exact.  The community traces it's origins back to a saw mill that operated on Hell Creek in 1841.  Supposedly the name "Hell" according to local lore was either what German immigrants referred to the location as or it was called as such due to the swath of mosquitos that early saw mill operators had to deal with.

Really Hell is nothing but a collection of themed buildings designed to capture the interest of bikers and passerby's like me who are bored.  The only other community called "Hell" that I'm aware of in the United States was in California along US 60/70 in the Sonoran Desert.  The Californian Hell was razed during the building of Interstate 10 and about as close as you can get to the site is Chuckwalla Valley Road.












Incidentally the movie Santa's Slay was set in what was called "Hell Township."  Really they don't depict the rural nature of the real Hell, Michigan accurately but it still is one of my favorite holiday themed slasher movies.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

I-40 rockslide uncovers old debates on highway

The Asheville Citizen-Times continues to do a great job covering all the angles of the Interstate 40 Haywood County rock slide. An article in Sunday's edition provides a strong historical perspective on how the Pigeon River routing of Interstate 40 came about. And perhaps most strikingly, in an article that ran just prior to the highway's opening in the fall of 1968, how engineers from both Tennessee and North Carolina warned "...that slides would probably be a major problem along the route for many years." On February 12, 1969, not long after the Interstate opened, the first rock slide that would close I-40 occurred. Like many other Interstates within North Carolina, Interstate 40 through the mountains has a history prior to formation of the Interstate Highway System and was also a heated political battle between local communities. The discussion for a road that would eventually become Interstate 40 dates back to the 1940's as the idea for interregional high

Mines Road

Mines Road is an approximately twenty-eight-mile highway located in the rural parts of the Diablo Range east of the San Francisco Bay Area.  Mines Road begins in San Antonio Valley in Santa Clara County and terminates at Tesla Road near Livermore of Alameda County.  The highway essentially is a modern overlay of the 1840s Mexican haul trail up Arroyo Mocho known as La Vereda del Monte.  The modern corridor of Mines Road took shape in the early twentieth century following development of San Antonio Valley amid a magnesite mining boom.  Part 1; the history of Mines Road Modern Mines Road partially overlays the historic corridor used by La Vereda del Monte (Mountain Trail).  La Vereda del Monte was part of a remote overland route through the Diablo Range primarily used to drive cattle from Alta California to Sonora.  The trail was most heavily used during the latter days of Alta California during the 1840s. La Vereda del Monte originated at Point of Timber between modern day Byron and Bre

Former California State Route 41 past Bates Station

When California State Route 41 was commissioned during August 1934 it was aligned along the then existing Fresno-Yosemite Road north of the San Joaquin River.  Within the Sierra Nevada foothills of Madera County, the original highway alignment ran past Bates Station via what is now Madera County Road 209, part of eastern Road 406 and Road 207.   Bates Station was a stage station plotted during the early 1880s at what was the intersection of the Coarsegold Road and Stockton-Los Angeles Road.   The modern alignment bypassing Bates Station to the east would be reopened to traffic during late 1939.   Part 1; the history of California State Route 41 past Bates Station Bates Station was featured as one of the many 1875-1899 Madera County era towns in the May 21, 1968, Madera Tribune .  Post Office Service at Bates Station is noted to have been established on November 23, 1883 and ran continuously until October 31, 1903.  The postal name was sourced from Bates Station owner/operator George Ba