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I Missed Whynot to Make Hell Town: Mule Travel in NC

Published June 11, 2004

I, Bernie Harberts, did not use generative AI to write or illustrate this article. Spell check and grammar check, yes. AI, no.

Woody and I play it free and loose when it comes to choosing our itinerary. Hey, this is mule travel. It doesn’t do to overplan.

Mostly I’m drawn to towns with unusual names. Not that I get to visit them all. I missed Whynot so I could make Lovejoy. There’s no way I was going to miss Hell Town.

Woody the mule grazing in Hell Town Community, North Carolina, 2004 — The grazing’s good in Hell Town.

Hell Town is actually a word of mouth community. I call it that because it’s not politically correct to commit the word “Hell” to a map, at least not if it was in reference to a community. In the DeLorme map book I use, as close as I could come was “Hell Town Road.” Was somebody hiding something?

I had to investigate.

Welcome to Hell Town

Hell Town, or Hell Town Community as it’s properly known, is just outside Garland, NC.

Woody and I travel slowly. My imagination doesn’t. As we rode toward Hell Town, I prepared myself for stories of mysterious subterranean lights and demon sightings.

It turned out that Hell Town had nothing to do with the occult. It had more to do with getting carriages stuck in the mud. Before the automobile age, when horses and mules still moved people and cargo, Garland served as a trade hub. It was connected to the outlying communities by a network of dirt roads. One stretch in particular, the one that passes just north of present day Hell Town, was particularly treacherous.

It traveled across damp, low lying country. After heavy rains, it would become nearly impassable. Yet there were always people who had to try to get through to Garland. Invariably they became stuck in the muck and the mire. The worst stretch? Right around Hell Town Community. That stretch was hell.

All that’s left these days of Hell Town are memories and a rusty steel sign. The white painted letters have just about all peeled off. When CD Cain planted it in his front yard so many years ago, the sign created a small scandal. This is heavy duty Baptist country.

Now the road’s been paved and people whiz by it so quickly in their cars, there’s just no time for offense.

More on the Atlantic to Pacific mule ride.

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