When Hell throws a party, people show up.
Hundreds of people from across the state and beyond gathered in Hell, Mich. on Tuesday to celebrate — and protest — the community's party in honor of the date June 6, 2006.
The crowd that gathered in the town resembled a mix of family picnic-goers and Alice Cooper concert attendees, their festivities contrasting with the serene rural setting.
Top 40 music blared as hundreds of people waited in line to get into Screams Ice Cream from Hell, an ice cream parlor and gift shop.
Down by the creek that separates Screams from Smitty's Dam Site Inn — the town bar and restaurant — Harley-Davidson riders sat on a picnic table having lunch. More bikers gathered in an area behind Hell Country Store & Spirits — the town's general store and post office — with metal music blasting while they ate hot dogs.
Members of Just Hearse'N Around and Graveyard Haulers arrived at 1 p.m. in hearses, some decorated with ghosts and skulls.
Club members grilled hot dogs and hamburgers on a grill in the shape of a full-sized coffin.
The group said they came to celebrate the event and to sell their unique rides.
Beverly Belau, 49, said that by early afternoon, several people had shown interest in buying a hearse, on sale for $5,000.
Beth Jarzabek, owner of the general store, said about 800 to 1,000 people had come through her establishment by 2:30 p.m., buying refreshments, snacks and postcards to send from Hell.
John Colone, the self-stylized mayor of Hell and owner of Screams, spent the day greeting visitors.
Colone said he didn't think the event was moving fast enough and added that planning had been rushed — the idea for the party had come less than two weeks earlier.
"We didn't expect this much attention," he said. "We've had people calling from all over the world."
Colone said the event was put on as a way to market the small Michigan community.
"We're a destination town," he said. "If you think you can make money off the people who live here, you've got another thing coming."
At 2 p.m., the line into Screams was at a three-hour wait, but Ken Brown, 17, was still in high spirits by the time he made it to the front.
Brown, who drove with his friends for more than five hours from Seymour, Indiana, was waiting to purchase a bat — so he could own a bat out of Hell.
"We've been going through all the puns we possibly can," Brown said. "We already took a lighter and burned our arm hair so we could say we burned in Hell — it's pretty flammable actually."
Hell is an unincorporated community — or one without its own government — that was named officially in 1841. There are two theories on the name's origin, according to the town's semiofficial Web site, www.hell2u.com.
The first explains that German travelers passing through the area in the 1830s exclaimed, "So schoene hell" — which roughly translates into "So bright and beautiful." The comment was overheard by residents and the name stuck.
The other theory is that George Reeves — a New York farmer who started the first businesses in the location — reportedly said, "I don't care, you can name it Hell if you want to," when asked to choose a name for the community.
Hell's party, however, was met with some resistance.
A handful of demonstrators carried signs covered in Bible passages on the street in front of the stores. A man stood on top of a cooler, holding a large sign depicting Jesus getting beaten before his crucifixion, and shouted to the crowd across the street with a plastic megaphone.
"Hey 6-6-06, let's make a dollar off it! Yeah cheap opportunists, sell their mom for 50 cents," he shouted.
Two demonstrators refused to give their last names, saying they did not want to be harassed.
"Donna," a Michigan resident, holding up a sign with the verse Mark 8:37, said 6-6-06 shouldn't be taken lightly.
"Making a joke out of it isn't good; I'm sure the Lord isn't happy," she said.
Melissa Pappas, a Hell resident of four years, said she expected some demonstrators to show up.
"Somebody's always going to think it's wrong, but we celebrate Halloween, and to me there's no difference," she said. "Halloween can be just as satanic."
Pappas was accompanied by her son Samuel, 4, dressed in a dragon costume and her daughter Ariel, 2, dressed as a unicorn.
Dan Nitzh, 16, skipped school in Warren and drove to Hell because the day only comes once in a lifetime.
"I think in the scheme of things, one day of studying is offset pretty well by a day in Hell," he said.
Amy Oprean can be reached at opreanam@msu.edu.
