A pleasant visit to Hell, Mich., filled with humor

Delivering the Mail by Allen Abel

The P.T. Barnum of Livingston County, Mich., is a scarred and savvy Vietnam War combat veteran who has built a million-dollar business from a four-letter word.

John Colone’s personal big top is a scattering of buildings on the bank of Portage Creek that, for reasons unknown, supposedly has been called Hell since 1841.

The name “Hell” might derive from the German word for “bright,” or it might be the punchline of some lost witticism from the administration of President William Henry Harrison, but either way, it has stuck.

“When I grew up, you couldn’t even say ‘hell’ on the radio,” Colone said in the bustling little store and postal counter where he sells Hades-themed schlock and “Hellmark” cards to hundreds of giggling tourists every day. But that was roughly 60 years ago, which is a hell of a long time.

The hamlet is located about an hour northwest of Ann Arbor, and it isn’t really on the direct route from anywhere to anywhere, yet by noon on a summer weekday the guest register already has been autographed by travelers from Hawaii, Texas, the Carolinas, Nebraska and Tennessee. The highway to Hell is a two-way road, which is rather comforting when you think about it.

Colone’s merchandise is exactly what you would expect in a joint like this: hoodies that tease “I’ve Been Through Hell,” frozen desserts from a “creamatorium” with a selection of “droppings” rather than toppings, and G-rated T-shirts for impressionable wee ones that read “I’ve Been Through Heck Because I Can’t Say Hell.”

Outside the shop is a macabre miniature golf course, a wrought-iron fence that announces “The Gates of Hell,” a patch of ground dedicated to the scattering of human cremains, and an outhouse-size wedding chapel that enjoys a steady business because, as Colone likes to say, “A marriage that begins in Hell has nowhere to go but up.”

For only $120, anyone can assume the office of mayor of Hell for a day — an impotent incumbency that is purchased by some 500 aspirants every year, proving yet again what the original Barnum said about a sucker being born every minute.

Hell, Mich., which is permanently populated by only a few dozen hellions, used to have its own U.S. post office. However, this designation was withdrawn in the 1990s — “They were closing all the small ones,” Colone said — and the Hell post office was subsumed into the postal machinery of the adjacent metropolis of Pinckney.

Colone still maintains a bustling quasi-postal counter, where clerks rubberstamp Beelzebub postcards with a bright red “I’VE BEEN THRU HELL MICHIGAN” mock cancellation and then singe the mailpieces with a cigarette lighter for additional realism before dispatching them, infernal smudges and all, via Pinckney.

“People come here to raise hell,” Colone jested to a visitor in a jocular vein, but there is a serious side to his story. In February 1968, he was a member of A Company of the 3rd Battalion of the 101st Airborne Division when the Viet Cong began what came to be known as the Tet Offensive.

Almost every man in A Company was killed or gravely wounded. Colone was severely wounded in the right arm, leg, torso and ear. He claims to have been certified killed in action before he twitched inside his body bag and rolled off a pile of corpses. What you see when he pulls up his sleeve is no Halloween gag.

After two years of hospitals, Colone returned to Portage Creek, learned to write left-handed, and went to work selling Chryslers, Plymouths and Dodges. The business prospered and led to the purchase of the emporium and real estate of downtown Hell.

At the far end of the property — past the mini-putt course and the wedding chapel — he installed a statue of a kneeling soldier and a prayer for the men of A Company who never came home.

Inside one of Michigan’s most popular tourist traps, grief is banished and ridiculousness reigns supreme.

In this spirit, Colone handed a visitor an official-looking “Non-Warranty Deed” to “A Square Inch of Hell on Earth” that reads, in part: “ … let it be known that Hell does freeze over, it gets both colder’n Hell and hotter’n Hell, and some days, like life itself, it rains like Hell.”

“Any complaints go to Helen Waite,” the warranty said.

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