There are a couple of different theories about how this little place came to own such a notorious name.

The truth is, there was probably no one standing around taking notes during the early part of the 1830s; they were more likely busy getting the crops out of the fields, the animals out of the garden, and the dinner on the table. So you're invited to read both theories and choose one that suits you best.

Theory One goes like this:

A pair of German travelers slid out of a curtained stagecoach one sunny summer afternoon, and one said to the other, "So schoene hell." 'Hell,' in the German language, means bright and beautiful. Those who overheard the visitors' comments had a bit of a laugh and shared the story with the other locals.

Sometime later, George Reeves, who, more than anyone else, was responsible for the origin of Hell, was asked just what he thought the town should be named.

George reportedly replied, "I don't care, you can name it Hell if you want to."

As the story goes, the name stuck and stuck fast. After some attempts to soften the effect of the name by suggesting they change it to Reevesville or Reeve's Mills, he gave up on the whole thing and simply lived with it.

Theory Two.
The area in which Hell exists is pretty low and swampy. And because it was a part of the Dexter Trail, which traced along the higher ground between Lansing and Dexter, Michigan, a formerly busy farm market and early railhead, traveling through the Hell area would have been wetter, darker, more convoluted, and certainly denser with mosquitoes than other legs of the journey. Further, river traders of old would have had to portage between the Huron and the Grand River systems somewhere around the present location of Hell.

You can picture them pulling their canoes, heavy with provisions and beaver pelts, through the underbrush, muttering and swatting bugs as they fought to get to the banks of the next river.

Maybe we're lucky it's called Hell and not something worse; the river traders likely had more colorful words to say about that part of their trip.

Feel free to select whichever theory brings you comfort or intellectual satisfaction. And if the impulse strikes, you're entirely welcome to make up a better explanation. History is re-written every day, and there's no reason we should leave that sort of thing to the academics, politicians, and media mucketymucks.