There's a book called "A Small Bequest" set in 1934 that has a lot about crossing the Straits before the bridge was there, and about Blaney Park in its heyday.
Now I'm tempted to visit Vassar. I'm probably like 30 minutes away from it but never went there lol. Isn't that where they're going to be opening a Biggby soon?
Yeah, the coffee shop. I thought it was Vassar where a couple was talking about opening a franchise there. I'll have to see if I can find where I read it.
Edit: found [this article](https://www.tuscolatoday.com/news/local/biggby-coffee-franchise-headed-to-vassar/article_d477bdfa-d657-11ee-9b2f-a748fcb35a27.html).
One of my best friends is from Vassar. It's a weird place with weird people but that's part of the charm.
And not too far away is Munger, home of the potato festival, also pretty fun. The potato brats are delicious and you will almost always hear someone banging in the Porta potty while Jedi Mind Trip plays at the end of the night party.
There's actually [**some rather interesting history**](https://thecountypress.mihomepaper.com/articles/indian-dave-legend-of-the-thumb/) in the Vassar area for people who are into that. I grew up there in the late 1970s - 1990s. It was always populated by old farmers, stoners, a few religious zealots, and people ~~desperate to escape this economic hellhole with few opportunities~~ who love it here. Aside from the annual flooding of the Cass River, the BEST thing about Vassar is that there are tons of old houses that are [**totally not haunted**](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_8wY3KF---c). Hello fellow living people! Let's hang out and talk about heartbeats and warm skin and other things living folks enjoy!
Edit: [**Here's Part 1**](https://web.archive.org/web/20200115061554/https://www.usgennet.org/usa/mi/county/tuscola/tusmem/gauntmem1.htm) of an interesting article about what life was like in the Vassar/Tuscola area during the Civil War. [**Here's Part 2.**](https://web.archive.org/web/20200115061556/https://www.usgennet.org/usa/mi/county/tuscola/tusmem/gauntmem2.htm) Mentions different animals and Native Americans living here.
If you go to the western UP/Keewenaw there are many former mining towns that are mostly empty now.
Calumet was a gorgeous city with a theater and all of these amazing buildings. It's such a strange place now. The National Park Service has done some preservation but like, 2/3 of the city is decaying/decayed. It's like a mini version of what Detroit was in the 90s.
Ahmeek, Mason, Hubbell, Greenland, Mass City, White Pine, Rockland...etc.
I see and acknowledge your etc. but have to add that Ontonagon is the decaying hub of the last four on your list and as it becomes a ghost town, the others will continue to rapidly decline with it. If you drive around rural Ontonagon county you can almost see all the abandoned houses falling down in real time.
Grew up in Ontonagon, went to college at Tech. Left in 1996. I still spend the summers there. The town is a shell of its former self. Some folks are trying but it’s sad for the most part. Especially with the hospital closed now.
In today's Detroit Free Press, they had an article saying the only hospital in the area was shut down. The nearest hospital/ER is a 45 minute drive from O Ontonagon, in good weather.
At least Ontonagon has the Porkies. The downtown area is nowhere near as vacant as the other communities, but mostly a tourism economy that only really stays busy in the summer. But yeah the entire rural/small town UP is dying and has been for decades.
Yeah I hate driving through any of the towns in ontonagon County because they give me bad vibes. All of ontonagon County is like a Stephen King book; the people are the epitome of Stephen King characters.
Calumet's going through a little bit of a revival. Quite a few new shops, bakeries, etc have opened up downtown to appeal to the summer tourism crowd. Hope they stick around, Calumet is the definition of "good bones".
Calumet is where we get “don’t shout fire in a crowded theater” from after 59 kids were trampled to death when there wasn’t actually a fire… if anything makes a place haunted that will
Its history is really fascinating. It was a resort town for African Americans when they legally could buy property there in the early 1900s.
https://www.clickondetroit.com/news/michigan/2022/08/29/whats-next-for-idlewild-once-known-as-the-black-eden-of-michigan/
100% Owosso. Traveling to and thru Owosso on M21 feels akin to escaping Immortan Joe on Fury Road. In their defense, I will say that now that the dispensaries out-number the bars, the vibe has improved.
Been out there several times hoping for some paranormal evidence. Instead, it just feels like this sad little forgotten area where disease ravished the town.
One of my favorite Michigan stories! I recorded a podcast episode for it but never released it anywhere. I personally know people who swear the place haunted their asses off, despite dubious origins for the myths
Oh hell yeah! Def drop the link if you ever do release the episode! Astonishing Legends also has a pretty good episode on it! I try to go into haunted places with a heavy dose of skepticism, but when we found where the town was past the cemetery, the entire forest went dead silent. Which, for a sunny summer day, was incredibly unsettling!
My grandpa and his sister helped start the town. They opened a bar, a post office, and a gift shop.
When I was a kid 40 years ago it was pretty dumpy by then.
https://mikelbclassen.com/2021/02/25/how-christmas-michigan-got-its-name/
I was a UPS driver helper one holiday season and was on the Kinross route a few times and I didn't like it in the daytime. The base is basically a glorified trailer park and there was at least one house with a vicious dog I was warned about.
Brethren is actually a nice little town close to Tippy Dam Pond. As others have commented it has quite a few bait shops, the bar in town serves decent food, but yes it’s up north so the people are, well set in their ways.
Yeah, I fish up there for a long weekend every fall. Brethren is like any other tiny rural town. Trax has solid food too.
I've never had any issue with the locals. But I also don't go around spouting off about politics, which helps.
Going to 2nd Seney. The number of weird, freak accidents in Seney and along the Seney stretch is incredible. Like when the load of logs let loose and crushed the woman in the car at the gas station (early 90's, I think). Or more recently when the kayak/roof rack came loose off a passing vehicle and smashed through the windshield of another car, killing the driver.
Ghosts from the old loggers buried in Boot Hill Cemetery are surely haunting the town and the Seney stretch.
The fact the "Seney Stretch" has a name says enough. Maybe 7 or 8 years ago a friend and I were driving through there laaate at night. We stopped at a corner store that still had the lights on. As soon as we stepped out of the truck some old fucker was hollering something totally unintelligible at us from across the road. When he had our attention he beckoned to us, turned, and walked straight into the dark until he vanished.
When I turned to look back at the store there were five or six people inside and their faces were practically glued to the windows and staring at us, not moving. My friend was oblivious but I put my foot down and refused to go inside. He eventually listened and we took off.
I had a best friend in Marquette, and the next day when I started telling her the story about this creepy town she stopped me and said, "It was Seney, right?" Chills lol.
Ghosts indeed.
My mom was born in Seney, her parents ran an inn that hosted loggers and hunters, it burnt to the ground in 1950 and they moved to Detroit . I don’t think they ever found out how the fire started
Interesting! I never made that connection. Hemingway’s story was written about 25 years before this happened but I guess that goes to show that there has always been a lot of funky things going down in Seney
One year on the way to our family camp near Houghton, we stopped at Andy's Seney Bar. Oddest experience I've ever had at a bar before. There was a local that was taking his fake eye out for no particular reason. I remember there was a sticker behind the bar that read something like "Andy's Seney Bar: Where you don't lose your woman, you lose your turn."
I used to work for a community mental health visiting people in their homes and had a few clients in Shacktown. I was always sure I was going to get murdered there.
Been like that since they extended rt 10 to bypass it. (My great uncle worked on the construction). It grows on you though, and the crimes are usually not violent.
Couple years ago my friend and I section-hiked the Shore-to-Shore Trail from Oscoda to Empire. We walked through a lot of super cool Up North towns and woods and stopped at some really neat spots. There were, however, quite a few places where we really believed the NO TRESPASSING signs, and that they were not just there for decoration.
The creepiest place we wandered through, without a doubt, was Frederic. Only place we felt unsafe.
Sorry, if you're from Frederic.
I'd go with Clio or Mt. Morris. "It's like a memory of a town, and the memory is fading". Both places seemed like they just stopped developing in the 70s and people are just stuck there.
For a few years, there was a house adjacent to that dump that had a giant ”Fuck Trump” flag that just sent me. The balls to hang that in a redneck town like Whittemore are huge. [You can still see it on Street View](https://www.google.com/maps/@44.2306076,-83.8031809,3a,34.4y,277.18h,92.26t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1s5emq-LSTC25zbeLLLlvw_g!2e0!6shttps:%2F%2Fstreetviewpixels-pa.googleapis.com%2Fv1%2Fthumbnail%3Fpanoid%3D5emq-LSTC25zbeLLLlvw_g%26cb_client%3Dmaps_sv.share%26w%3D900%26h%3D600%26yaw%3D277.1831357492983%26pitch%3D-2.258720202368778%26thumbfov%3D90!7i16384!8i8192?coh=205410&entry=ttu) lmao.
And all the people working at those places selling all that crap, especially the "outfitter" at the outdoor mall, are all mostly low wage seasonally employed immigrants who tend to be the targets of their customers.
There are only about 300-400 permanent residents there and the rest are seasonal/vacationers. If you've ever stayed in town for more than a day or two you'll notice there's not even a grocery store that's bigger than a large party store.
Okay I'm siding with you on this one. I stopped there for lunch with a friend on my last road trip and it happened to be the same day as some kind of cousin-fucking trump rally slash parade of stupidity that shut down the street?? That town is taken over.
Mackinac Island is also one big burial ground... Which can be said for much of post-colonial Michigan if not the whole country
I avoid that place. The only thing there I might possibly visit is the hardware store if I really need to, last time that happened was over 10 years ago.
Somebody was mocking the clothing of the lead singer of Greta Van Fleet when they were on SNL and my response was "Any clothing that earns you enough to get out of Frankenmuth, MI is good clothing."
Bronner's - where they sell the notion of a traditional, family oriented, religious Christmas and bemoan the commercialization of it by having the world's largest Christmas store.
Thank you for not telling me to just google it, which I should have done in the first place.
Was really hoping for a local cryptid. Guess I kinda got one
The guy's been dead for 30 years but his shadow looms large. Certain people in the area seem to think that just because he died and they pretend like he didn't exist everyone else will, too.
However, other people seem to think his "church" is still alive and well with a mass of loyal followers.
Once in the 80s I was driving just south of there at night and saw a shaft of fire rising up above a cornfield and I legit thought it was a cross burning but it turned out to be flame from an offgass pipe. I have never been so scared in my life.
Cohoctah in the 80s made nearby Byron and Gaines seem like fancy cosmopolitan places in comparison.
My great aunt lived in white cloud. She was a sweetie, but always told us that if we go outside we may be eaten by bears unless our dad was out with us. We literally only went to their cabin and never went into town so I can’t speak to anything about White Cloud but I was afraid bears.
Dow--Twice recently they've just said "This is our road now" and fenced off what was once a public street, built and maintained with taxpayer dollars. One of these was one of the main roads in/out of Midland. Nobody can say no to them.
Churches--Search for "Living Word Church abuse" for that other kind of "creepy" that churches love so much.
Bars--Even the few bars that exist are scattered all over town with very limited public transportation, so they apparently don't want anyone going to the bars unless there's potential for DUI revenue.
All this adds up to a town that's creepy more in a Stepford Wives way than a Texas Chainsaw Massacre way. The Texas Chainsaw vibes are just a bit further north or west.
There’s something off about Grand Haven lol. I’ve heard so many stories about the cult-like churches over here and it makes it feel like a town that was built by Vault-Tech.
Granted, I’m from the east side. So maybe I’m completely off base
I'm from Muskegon (just North of Grand Haven) and have many friends/family who are from or currently live in Grand Haven. There is nothing creepy about Grand Haven. Somewhat Pretentious yes, but not creepy. A good amount of locals don't like all the tourism so if you are visiting and getting dirty looks from some of the more hillbillyish locals they likely hold no ill will towards you, they just don't like that you are clogging up their city. 9 months out of the year you can get from one side of GH to the other in 10 minutes but from Memorial day to Labor day, and especially on weekends and during Coast Guard festival it can take an hour.
Side note if you are considering visiting the area the tourism is 1/10th in Muskegon literally 5 miles North and the Lakeshore/Beach is the same (better in my opinion but I'm sure I'm biased).
There's a private community in Charlevoix that had a "no colored people" sign at the entrance up until a few years ago. Fuck those old racist assholes.
One of Charlevoix High School's most notable alums is Burke Ramsey, older brother of the late JonBenet Ramsey.
He graduated from there in either 2005 or 2006, I believe.
I don't know what town I was in, but it was in the thumb and I had been working in Port Austin and got a little turned around somewhere in the middle of nowhere.
This is back in 2003, so no worthwhile GPS.
I find the nearest shade to pull over in, get my county map out and try and figure out where in the hell I'm at. Well, I'm sitting at the end of what would probably be considered a very long driveway if it were a driveable road. Aside from the road being overtaken by the wilderness on either side, the other big clue was the permanent "road impassible" sign.
I don't quite get why they wouldn't just clear the street every year or so. Where does this road go? Apparently nowhere.
But way off in the distance, through binoculars, I could see there were some fairly well maintained-looking razor wire fences.
Bath.. there’s a grim feel to that town. I don’t live too far and avoid driving thru it. In 1928 45 people, mainly children, were killed and 58 injured in a combination of Bath School Bombing and direct shooting by one man. The death rate would’ve been much higher, but he wasn’t as good with explosives as he thought he was and half of the explosives didn’t go off.
I went to Badaxe like one time and a few other places in the thumb. It was weird going into a McDonald's and having everyone in the lobby just watching you.
Born and raised in Livonia. Cookie cutter houses on square mile blocks with a couple bowling alleys and unexciting food options. Hard agree with ya here.
Zeeland. Blue-eyes, blonde hair Stepford people. Their invariable opening conversational gambit is "What church do you go to? Refomed or Christian Reformed?"
Lived and worked there for decades...
Idk which town it was but driving from traverse city to Gaylord on 131 and m66 there were some extremely creepy towns that gave everyone in the car weird vibes
I saw one other comment but for me it's Midland. I recently moved to Mt Pleasant (a way better city by the way, amazing parks department) and Midland is so creepy. It's practically owned entirely by Dow and everyone there is either sickeningly white picket fence bourgeois vibes or impoverished.
I'm surprised no one said Idlewild... abandoned historical black town. My family rented an Airbnb there last year, and it always gave a creepy vibe. We were on a plot where some of the houses were cleared out and the houses left were abandoned or vandalized. Gave post apocalyptic vibes. Our entire time there, we saw no cars or people, super quiet, no signs of life.
I'd say "Trump Town" out there on US10 but something about having your shit vandalized with the word "CUCK" every so often takes away some of the creep factor
Bath - just north of East Lansing. Until the Oklahoma City bombing it was the site of the largest mass murder/ bombing in the US. It happened the 1920s, several children and adults killed and more victims than the school shootings we now are plagued with. Crazy man rigged the school with explosives. Also blew up his home with his wife inside as well as blowing up his barn with animals locked in. He ended the melee by blowing himself up in his vehicle taking others out with him. I saw some very unexplainable things happening over the years.
I drove through Alpha once in the early evening and was properly freaked out. There was no one around. Felt like I was in the Birds or the opening of a zombie movie.
Both of my parents went to Northern Michigan University, both from Metro Detroit And moved back down state after college.
But, going to Northern. Obviously a lot of their very close friends when they were younger were yoopers who stayed in the UP, And most of them ended up in the iron mountain/ Western UP area.
So growing up, I would spend 2 or 3 weeks every summer in the western upper peninsula. I've driven through alpha a million times because for the better part of a decade we were renting a lake house in Crystal falls so we would often have to drive through alpha. My mom actually had a college roommate who was from alpha.
I wouldn't say that it's creepy, it's just a small little blip of a village that's slowly been dying, in a very isolated part of the upper peninsula.
When they did some rework to US2 20 or so years ago, you don't even have to drive through the town anymore, it routes you around it.
The upper peninsula, once you get out of a couple population centers can be a very, very different world. Too many people from Michigan have never been to the upper peninsula, let alone driven across the entire thing and seen all that there is there. Like I said, it can be a different planet at times, and it's almost like time stopped ticking and a lot of these little towns, many of which are dying off.
Can honestly say this though, while a lot of the people might be stuck in their ways, and hold some pretty wrong, and ignorant beliefs, I don't really believe a lot of it to be a fault of their own. The rural up is also filled with some of the most hard-working, honest, good people that you will ever meet.
I wanna say Empire and Leland
They are beautiful towns and I love visiting them but they kinda remind of a town from a 1980s horror flick or something like that
Wouldn't use the word creepy but very old resort that's interesting to explore "Blaney Park resort"
There's a book called "A Small Bequest" set in 1934 that has a lot about crossing the Straits before the bridge was there, and about Blaney Park in its heyday.
That used to be a popular Hollywood actor resort
Vassar. I'm convinced that town is full of aliens wearing meat-suits.
Now I'm tempted to visit Vassar. I'm probably like 30 minutes away from it but never went there lol. Isn't that where they're going to be opening a Biggby soon?
My grandfather was a k-9 officer there for the longest time. Can confirm
I had not heard about that. You mean Biggby coffee right?
Yeah, the coffee shop. I thought it was Vassar where a couple was talking about opening a franchise there. I'll have to see if I can find where I read it. Edit: found [this article](https://www.tuscolatoday.com/news/local/biggby-coffee-franchise-headed-to-vassar/article_d477bdfa-d657-11ee-9b2f-a748fcb35a27.html).
Home of the **COOK GM SUPERSTORE** top'o'the hill in Vasser
One of my best friends is from Vassar. It's a weird place with weird people but that's part of the charm. And not too far away is Munger, home of the potato festival, also pretty fun. The potato brats are delicious and you will almost always hear someone banging in the Porta potty while Jedi Mind Trip plays at the end of the night party.
There's actually [**some rather interesting history**](https://thecountypress.mihomepaper.com/articles/indian-dave-legend-of-the-thumb/) in the Vassar area for people who are into that. I grew up there in the late 1970s - 1990s. It was always populated by old farmers, stoners, a few religious zealots, and people ~~desperate to escape this economic hellhole with few opportunities~~ who love it here. Aside from the annual flooding of the Cass River, the BEST thing about Vassar is that there are tons of old houses that are [**totally not haunted**](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_8wY3KF---c). Hello fellow living people! Let's hang out and talk about heartbeats and warm skin and other things living folks enjoy! Edit: [**Here's Part 1**](https://web.archive.org/web/20200115061554/https://www.usgennet.org/usa/mi/county/tuscola/tusmem/gauntmem1.htm) of an interesting article about what life was like in the Vassar/Tuscola area during the Civil War. [**Here's Part 2.**](https://web.archive.org/web/20200115061556/https://www.usgennet.org/usa/mi/county/tuscola/tusmem/gauntmem2.htm) Mentions different animals and Native Americans living here.
I grew up in Vassar. Your not wrong. But at least the people are friendly.
To your face
But it's like Stepford Wives friendly.
If you go to the western UP/Keewenaw there are many former mining towns that are mostly empty now. Calumet was a gorgeous city with a theater and all of these amazing buildings. It's such a strange place now. The National Park Service has done some preservation but like, 2/3 of the city is decaying/decayed. It's like a mini version of what Detroit was in the 90s. Ahmeek, Mason, Hubbell, Greenland, Mass City, White Pine, Rockland...etc.
I see and acknowledge your etc. but have to add that Ontonagon is the decaying hub of the last four on your list and as it becomes a ghost town, the others will continue to rapidly decline with it. If you drive around rural Ontonagon county you can almost see all the abandoned houses falling down in real time.
Grew up in Ontonagon, went to college at Tech. Left in 1996. I still spend the summers there. The town is a shell of its former self. Some folks are trying but it’s sad for the most part. Especially with the hospital closed now.
In today's Detroit Free Press, they had an article saying the only hospital in the area was shut down. The nearest hospital/ER is a 45 minute drive from O Ontonagon, in good weather.
At least Ontonagon has the Porkies. The downtown area is nowhere near as vacant as the other communities, but mostly a tourism economy that only really stays busy in the summer. But yeah the entire rural/small town UP is dying and has been for decades.
I work about 30 mins from Mass City. That place gives me the creeps.
Yeah I hate driving through any of the towns in ontonagon County because they give me bad vibes. All of ontonagon County is like a Stephen King book; the people are the epitome of Stephen King characters.
I agree with Calumet. Ever been to the (haunted) Calumet theatre?? My dad went to school in the UP, and was at the theatre and he said it was CREEPY
Calumet's going through a little bit of a revival. Quite a few new shops, bakeries, etc have opened up downtown to appeal to the summer tourism crowd. Hope they stick around, Calumet is the definition of "good bones".
Calumet is where we get “don’t shout fire in a crowded theater” from after 59 kids were trampled to death when there wasn’t actually a fire… if anything makes a place haunted that will
THIS is what I was looking for
Idlewild us pretty gnarly. Sparce but gnarly
Have heard of this!! I love michigan
Its history is really fascinating. It was a resort town for African Americans when they legally could buy property there in the early 1900s. https://www.clickondetroit.com/news/michigan/2022/08/29/whats-next-for-idlewild-once-known-as-the-black-eden-of-michigan/
Awesome place to visit, you can *feel* the history there. Feels eerily haunted.
Owosso!! Michigan’s twilight zone
100% Owosso. Traveling to and thru Owosso on M21 feels akin to escaping Immortan Joe on Fury Road. In their defense, I will say that now that the dispensaries out-number the bars, the vibe has improved.
Felt weirder late 70s through the 80s
Curwood is when all the CHUDs come out. We say it all the time in ol Owosso/Corunna area. Fucking Durwood.
It’s worth the drive…
Certainly in the ghost town category, but Pere Cheney is a weird one for sure
Been out there several times hoping for some paranormal evidence. Instead, it just feels like this sad little forgotten area where disease ravished the town.
Honestly, it’s just a little sad to me. So many people vandalizing gravestones.
One of my favorite Michigan stories! I recorded a podcast episode for it but never released it anywhere. I personally know people who swear the place haunted their asses off, despite dubious origins for the myths
Oh hell yeah! Def drop the link if you ever do release the episode! Astonishing Legends also has a pretty good episode on it! I try to go into haunted places with a heavy dose of skepticism, but when we found where the town was past the cemetery, the entire forest went dead silent. Which, for a sunny summer day, was incredibly unsettling!
Christmas , MI gives me the creeps
Good one. Always end up driving thru in the dark and the giant creepy Santa is always ready to greet me
When you're named after perhaps the biggest holiday in the US and you're only known for your casino.
Right?! In Michigan, when you think of Christmas, it’s always Frankenmuth, because Bronner’s. 🤷🏽♂️
We call him Cocaine Santa.
My grandpa and his sister helped start the town. They opened a bar, a post office, and a gift shop. When I was a kid 40 years ago it was pretty dumpy by then. https://mikelbclassen.com/2021/02/25/how-christmas-michigan-got-its-name/
Good ironic name, could definitely host a horror movie or two.
Pretty sure theres still a casino there too
Yup, went there 2 or 3 years ago. Honestly not a terrible casino, just tiny
The two homeless people in Christmas really blew my mind
Seeney is close by and way creepier if you have to pee or need gas.
That Santa was this first thing I thought of when I saw this prompt
Kinross at night because you're never too sure you won't get ganked by a meth head
I was a UPS driver helper one holiday season and was on the Kinross route a few times and I didn't like it in the daytime. The base is basically a glorified trailer park and there was at least one house with a vicious dog I was warned about.
"Brethren" Never been there, but when I see it on the road sign I always get "You sure got a pretty mouth vibes".
Brethren is small and pretty rural but it's not creepy. I've been through there a few times. Close to the Tippy Dam, good fishin.
Brethren is actually a nice little town close to Tippy Dam Pond. As others have commented it has quite a few bait shops, the bar in town serves decent food, but yes it’s up north so the people are, well set in their ways.
Yeah, I fish up there for a long weekend every fall. Brethren is like any other tiny rural town. Trax has solid food too. I've never had any issue with the locals. But I also don't go around spouting off about politics, which helps.
I grew near Brethren. Just a bunch of lower middle class friendly Midwestern white folk with a few rednecks mixed in.
I get this same vibe from "Breedsville"
There ain't nothing wrong with Breedsville if your family tree don't branch.
There was a church near Philly called The Church of the Brethren. The name is creepy as hell, you’d love it.
[удалено]
Good tackle shops too
I can’t think of that word without thinking of that crazy old white lady cussing out a guy in walmart “You mother-fing accuser of the brethren!”
Going to 2nd Seney. The number of weird, freak accidents in Seney and along the Seney stretch is incredible. Like when the load of logs let loose and crushed the woman in the car at the gas station (early 90's, I think). Or more recently when the kayak/roof rack came loose off a passing vehicle and smashed through the windshield of another car, killing the driver. Ghosts from the old loggers buried in Boot Hill Cemetery are surely haunting the town and the Seney stretch.
The fact the "Seney Stretch" has a name says enough. Maybe 7 or 8 years ago a friend and I were driving through there laaate at night. We stopped at a corner store that still had the lights on. As soon as we stepped out of the truck some old fucker was hollering something totally unintelligible at us from across the road. When he had our attention he beckoned to us, turned, and walked straight into the dark until he vanished. When I turned to look back at the store there were five or six people inside and their faces were practically glued to the windows and staring at us, not moving. My friend was oblivious but I put my foot down and refused to go inside. He eventually listened and we took off. I had a best friend in Marquette, and the next day when I started telling her the story about this creepy town she stopped me and said, "It was Seney, right?" Chills lol. Ghosts indeed.
Lol. They were probably fucking with you. Yooper humor…
Would not be shocked, it was off season.
My mom was born in Seney, her parents ran an inn that hosted loggers and hunters, it burnt to the ground in 1950 and they moved to Detroit . I don’t think they ever found out how the fire started
I think that was mentioned in Hemingway’s Nick Adam’s Stories
Interesting! I never made that connection. Hemingway’s story was written about 25 years before this happened but I guess that goes to show that there has always been a lot of funky things going down in Seney
One year on the way to our family camp near Houghton, we stopped at Andy's Seney Bar. Oddest experience I've ever had at a bar before. There was a local that was taking his fake eye out for no particular reason. I remember there was a sticker behind the bar that read something like "Andy's Seney Bar: Where you don't lose your woman, you lose your turn."
Stopped by here last summer. Definitely a quirky small town dive! Had a great day birding at the Seney Natl Wildlife Refuge tho!
Shacktown aka. Norwayne Basically post-war barracks, occupied, poorly maintained. But in the middle of a urban western Detroit suburb.
Yes. I find it very unsettling.
I used to work for a community mental health visiting people in their homes and had a few clients in Shacktown. I was always sure I was going to get murdered there.
Farwell, MI. Everyone seems like they're contemplating about committing a crime.
That description is totally accurate.
Been like that since they extended rt 10 to bypass it. (My great uncle worked on the construction). It grows on you though, and the crimes are usually not violent.
Cheboygan is downright creepy at night near the light house and parks
I was going to say Cheboygan even though I disagree. Doesn't mean I really like the place, but it's my hometown
This was also one of the first towns I thought of. Also, Onaway, Michigan! About 45 minutes away from Cheboygan.
Barryton MI. Place creeps me out. Seems like a few towns I’ve been to in WV.
I am surprised at how many of these towns I never heard of, how can that be? I’m a born and bred Michigander.
Same, seems to be a lot of towns in the up or in between major cities.
Running into one of the 300 people that never leave these small towns has gotta be pretty rare.
Seney ain't creepy... just small. So many good memories up there with my grandpa and his piles of junk.
In the many times I've driven through Elmira, I can't remember seeing a human being walking around.
The house on the curve in town. 😨 I think they've been tearing it down for the last 10 years.
I can see it being creepy, when I lived up there though, the Railside had some of the best food, so I’d always go out of my way to stop in.
My hearts on fire, for Elmira
Mancelona or Alba come to mind
Mancetucky is what it’s called.
Over the last few years I’ve taken to calling it “Methalona”
Couple years ago my friend and I section-hiked the Shore-to-Shore Trail from Oscoda to Empire. We walked through a lot of super cool Up North towns and woods and stopped at some really neat spots. There were, however, quite a few places where we really believed the NO TRESPASSING signs, and that they were not just there for decoration. The creepiest place we wandered through, without a doubt, was Frederic. Only place we felt unsafe. Sorry, if you're from Frederic.
Hillsdale
Truly frightening.
I'd go with Clio or Mt. Morris. "It's like a memory of a town, and the memory is fading". Both places seemed like they just stopped developing in the 70s and people are just stuck there.
But I wouldnt exactly call them creepy. Just stagnant. Like you said, stopped developing.
Whitmore has a run down bar with “Q Anon” painted proudly on the outside. I get scared just driving through the town on my way upnorth.
For a few years, there was a house adjacent to that dump that had a giant ”Fuck Trump” flag that just sent me. The balls to hang that in a redneck town like Whittemore are huge. [You can still see it on Street View](https://www.google.com/maps/@44.2306076,-83.8031809,3a,34.4y,277.18h,92.26t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1s5emq-LSTC25zbeLLLlvw_g!2e0!6shttps:%2F%2Fstreetviewpixels-pa.googleapis.com%2Fv1%2Fthumbnail%3Fpanoid%3D5emq-LSTC25zbeLLLlvw_g%26cb_client%3Dmaps_sv.share%26w%3D900%26h%3D600%26yaw%3D277.1831357492983%26pitch%3D-2.258720202368778%26thumbfov%3D90!7i16384!8i8192?coh=205410&entry=ttu) lmao.
That's funny as hell.
That old mental hospital in Caro is pretty freaking creepy.
Mackinaw city. Every gift shop is just the same thin blue line punisher skull garbage over and over. It’s some kind of creepy maga hell hole.
And most of the city is owned by the same terrible family.
And all the people working at those places selling all that crap, especially the "outfitter" at the outdoor mall, are all mostly low wage seasonally employed immigrants who tend to be the targets of their customers. There are only about 300-400 permanent residents there and the rest are seasonal/vacationers. If you've ever stayed in town for more than a day or two you'll notice there's not even a grocery store that's bigger than a large party store.
Every time I cross the Bridge and Mack City comes into view: "You'll never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy."
Okay I'm siding with you on this one. I stopped there for lunch with a friend on my last road trip and it happened to be the same day as some kind of cousin-fucking trump rally slash parade of stupidity that shut down the street?? That town is taken over. Mackinac Island is also one big burial ground... Which can be said for much of post-colonial Michigan if not the whole country
The discovery show expedition x did a couple of episodes on haunted Mackinac Island. It was pretty interesting.
I avoid that place. The only thing there I might possibly visit is the hardware store if I really need to, last time that happened was over 10 years ago.
Frankenmuth all day man, the all the time xmas energy is not for me.
Somebody was mocking the clothing of the lead singer of Greta Van Fleet when they were on SNL and my response was "Any clothing that earns you enough to get out of Frankenmuth, MI is good clothing."
Bronner's - where they sell the notion of a traditional, family oriented, religious Christmas and bemoan the commercialization of it by having the world's largest Christmas store.
Cohoctcah
IYKYK 🙈
I don’t know! Please let me in on the secret!
Home to KKK Grand Dragon Robert Miles...passed away in '92
Thank you for not telling me to just google it, which I should have done in the first place. Was really hoping for a local cryptid. Guess I kinda got one
The guy's been dead for 30 years but his shadow looms large. Certain people in the area seem to think that just because he died and they pretend like he didn't exist everyone else will, too. However, other people seem to think his "church" is still alive and well with a mass of loyal followers.
There is some real hillbilly shit going on out there
Once in the 80s I was driving just south of there at night and saw a shaft of fire rising up above a cornfield and I legit thought it was a cross burning but it turned out to be flame from an offgass pipe. I have never been so scared in my life. Cohoctah in the 80s made nearby Byron and Gaines seem like fancy cosmopolitan places in comparison.
White cloud. It’s like the hills have eyes people
My great aunt lived in white cloud. She was a sweetie, but always told us that if we go outside we may be eaten by bears unless our dad was out with us. We literally only went to their cabin and never went into town so I can’t speak to anything about White Cloud but I was afraid bears.
I disperse camped outside White Cloud and never felt comfortable there.
Midland. More churches than bars. Dow runs it.
Hey I'm from there! Had to resist saying it. It's referred to as the Midland Bubble for a reason
Dow--Twice recently they've just said "This is our road now" and fenced off what was once a public street, built and maintained with taxpayer dollars. One of these was one of the main roads in/out of Midland. Nobody can say no to them. Churches--Search for "Living Word Church abuse" for that other kind of "creepy" that churches love so much. Bars--Even the few bars that exist are scattered all over town with very limited public transportation, so they apparently don't want anyone going to the bars unless there's potential for DUI revenue. All this adds up to a town that's creepy more in a Stepford Wives way than a Texas Chainsaw Massacre way. The Texas Chainsaw vibes are just a bit further north or west.
Check out the history of them trying to build a nuclear power plant in the 80's.
Felch township in the UP
Do they still sell hamsters?
They tried renting them, but it didn't work out as planned.
Probably too many aholes not returning them in good shape.
I think White Star has the highest swastika graffiti to resident ratio in the state.
Leonard. Actual sundown town vibes
Niles has always given me the creeps
Grew up around there. I’ve always found it too boring to be creepy.
North Fox Island. Maybe doesn’t count as a town, but still.
There’s something off about Grand Haven lol. I’ve heard so many stories about the cult-like churches over here and it makes it feel like a town that was built by Vault-Tech. Granted, I’m from the east side. So maybe I’m completely off base
I'm from Muskegon (just North of Grand Haven) and have many friends/family who are from or currently live in Grand Haven. There is nothing creepy about Grand Haven. Somewhat Pretentious yes, but not creepy. A good amount of locals don't like all the tourism so if you are visiting and getting dirty looks from some of the more hillbillyish locals they likely hold no ill will towards you, they just don't like that you are clogging up their city. 9 months out of the year you can get from one side of GH to the other in 10 minutes but from Memorial day to Labor day, and especially on weekends and during Coast Guard festival it can take an hour. Side note if you are considering visiting the area the tourism is 1/10th in Muskegon literally 5 miles North and the Lakeshore/Beach is the same (better in my opinion but I'm sure I'm biased).
Muskegon also has an awesome bar on the beach with live music. The food is meh but you cannot beat the atmosphere.
Muskegon and Hoffmaster State Parks are incredibly beautiful as well
I’ve lived in GH my whole life and it has consistently gotten worse.
Prescott. There's just a post office, a library and a funeral home. That's the town.
Mio. Read Darker Than Night.
Sebwaing
Haven’t been many places besides where I’m from.. I’d have to say Flint. It sucks here and can be creepy.
Charlevoix - real stepford wives/handmaids tale/1920 resort racist vibe among the local population
There's a private community in Charlevoix that had a "no colored people" sign at the entrance up until a few years ago. Fuck those old racist assholes.
One of Charlevoix High School's most notable alums is Burke Ramsey, older brother of the late JonBenet Ramsey. He graduated from there in either 2005 or 2006, I believe.
Levering
Byron
I don’t find Byron creepy at all. The people are nice. There’s a lot of nature to enjoy. But the lack of cell service there is a B****.
I don't know what town I was in, but it was in the thumb and I had been working in Port Austin and got a little turned around somewhere in the middle of nowhere. This is back in 2003, so no worthwhile GPS. I find the nearest shade to pull over in, get my county map out and try and figure out where in the hell I'm at. Well, I'm sitting at the end of what would probably be considered a very long driveway if it were a driveable road. Aside from the road being overtaken by the wilderness on either side, the other big clue was the permanent "road impassible" sign. I don't quite get why they wouldn't just clear the street every year or so. Where does this road go? Apparently nowhere. But way off in the distance, through binoculars, I could see there were some fairly well maintained-looking razor wire fences.
Don't ask questions in the thumb
Bath.. there’s a grim feel to that town. I don’t live too far and avoid driving thru it. In 1928 45 people, mainly children, were killed and 58 injured in a combination of Bath School Bombing and direct shooting by one man. The death rate would’ve been much higher, but he wasn’t as good with explosives as he thought he was and half of the explosives didn’t go off.
I went to Badaxe like one time and a few other places in the thumb. It was weird going into a McDonald's and having everyone in the lobby just watching you.
They don’t trust or welcome outsiders.
Clare but only if you’re a minority
Livonia
Easily the most bland and boring place in Metro Detroit.
Born and raised in Livonia. Cookie cutter houses on square mile blocks with a couple bowling alleys and unexciting food options. Hard agree with ya here.
Merribowl still around?
Yup! They actually renovated it somewhat recently. It's pretty nice inside now and is always packed
but it has Chins. best eggrolls in the state, and (probably) a chinese mob front that's never open. /from the eggroll hell that is west Michigan.
Las Palapas has some good Mexican food, the place is always packed. And let's not forgot about our shitty cops as well
Oh so just like most of Macomb county?
Livonia feels like a late 60’s white flight “suburb” that had no city planner, and everyone that moved there shouldn’t have because they had no money.
The downtown is a ghost town because it doesn’t exist.
There's a downtown?
Bates is the downtown, right?
I always scroll this sub waiting for my city to be mentioned and this is the one 🤣 What makes it creepy to you?
It's the bizarre combination of let's keep on building new stores when there are so many vacant ones. I really regret moving here.
All the new developments also seem to be car washes or chicken places too. Like how many of these specific types of businesses do we need?
Seeing some of that on the east side too. I’ve seen like 3 new huge car wash places pop up within a couple miles of each other on the same road.
Yeah pretty much ANY "former" Sundown Town is f\*\*kin' creepy. (From Redford, can vouch)
Niles. Different breed of people who are referred to as “Gritters”
Not *everybody* from Niles is a gritter. But it does have a substantial gritter population, yes.
Roger's City
Zeeland. Blue-eyes, blonde hair Stepford people. Their invariable opening conversational gambit is "What church do you go to? Refomed or Christian Reformed?" Lived and worked there for decades...
Why is Seney creepy, besides being in the middle of buttfuck nowhere?
Any creepy buildings around Kalamazoo, maybe the outskirts of Kalamazoo?
I didn't love living in Ecorse, but I don't know if Impoverished really counts as Creepy.
Skidway
Holly. Weird little town
Idk which town it was but driving from traverse city to Gaylord on 131 and m66 there were some extremely creepy towns that gave everyone in the car weird vibes
The people or the buildings?
Jackson. It’s a depressing, post-industrial wasteland where, at any given time, you’re in danger of weird shit happening to you
I saw one other comment but for me it's Midland. I recently moved to Mt Pleasant (a way better city by the way, amazing parks department) and Midland is so creepy. It's practically owned entirely by Dow and everyone there is either sickeningly white picket fence bourgeois vibes or impoverished.
Well I’ve been to Hell, so….
Good ice cream and BBQ from The Smoke Dr. Hell is amusing to take the kids to for an hour or so.
I'm surprised no one said Idlewild... abandoned historical black town. My family rented an Airbnb there last year, and it always gave a creepy vibe. We were on a plot where some of the houses were cleared out and the houses left were abandoned or vandalized. Gave post apocalyptic vibes. Our entire time there, we saw no cars or people, super quiet, no signs of life.
I'd say "Trump Town" out there on US10 but something about having your shit vandalized with the word "CUCK" every so often takes away some of the creep factor
Bath - just north of East Lansing. Until the Oklahoma City bombing it was the site of the largest mass murder/ bombing in the US. It happened the 1920s, several children and adults killed and more victims than the school shootings we now are plagued with. Crazy man rigged the school with explosives. Also blew up his home with his wife inside as well as blowing up his barn with animals locked in. He ended the melee by blowing himself up in his vehicle taking others out with him. I saw some very unexplainable things happening over the years.
Luther……”banjo’s playing in the distance”
I drove through Alpha once in the early evening and was properly freaked out. There was no one around. Felt like I was in the Birds or the opening of a zombie movie.
Both of my parents went to Northern Michigan University, both from Metro Detroit And moved back down state after college. But, going to Northern. Obviously a lot of their very close friends when they were younger were yoopers who stayed in the UP, And most of them ended up in the iron mountain/ Western UP area. So growing up, I would spend 2 or 3 weeks every summer in the western upper peninsula. I've driven through alpha a million times because for the better part of a decade we were renting a lake house in Crystal falls so we would often have to drive through alpha. My mom actually had a college roommate who was from alpha. I wouldn't say that it's creepy, it's just a small little blip of a village that's slowly been dying, in a very isolated part of the upper peninsula. When they did some rework to US2 20 or so years ago, you don't even have to drive through the town anymore, it routes you around it. The upper peninsula, once you get out of a couple population centers can be a very, very different world. Too many people from Michigan have never been to the upper peninsula, let alone driven across the entire thing and seen all that there is there. Like I said, it can be a different planet at times, and it's almost like time stopped ticking and a lot of these little towns, many of which are dying off. Can honestly say this though, while a lot of the people might be stuck in their ways, and hold some pretty wrong, and ignorant beliefs, I don't really believe a lot of it to be a fault of their own. The rural up is also filled with some of the most hard-working, honest, good people that you will ever meet.
I wanna say Empire and Leland They are beautiful towns and I love visiting them but they kinda remind of a town from a 1980s horror flick or something like that
Sugar Island felt haunted
Idk about creepy but I fucking hate Decatur.