Two Michigan Ghost Towns: Assyria and Ellis Corners

Michigan is well-known for its plethora of ghost towns in the Upper Peninsula: lumber towns, mining towns, and some farm towns. Even though the U.P. has a countless number of those, there are a good many in the lower peninsula as well.

Two of them are Assyria and Ellis Corners.

Assyria sits in the township of the same name in Barry County. A man from Vermont by the name of Joseph Blaisdell came here with his family and settled in 1836. The following year Cleveland Ellis showed up; another seven years went by and the town held its first meeting in Ellis' home (1844) As for the town name, 'Assyria', it is claimed that it was chosen to avoid the possibility of duplicating the name of another Michigan town..

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The Assyria post office operated from 1842 to 1937; from that point on, the town ceased any future growth and people began moving elsewhere, leaving Assyria to slowly turn into a ghost town, with only a few residents remaining. You can find Assyria at the corner of M-66 and Tasker Road.

Next up is Ellis Corners, commonly referred to as just plain 'Ellis'. It sits in Calhoun County's Fredonia Township, 23 miles south of Assyria and ten miles south of Marshall. The post office in Ellis Corners lasted from 1882 to 1901, but it seems that it was a little more than just a postal station; an old structure that was once a general store still stands with the words “Ellis Corners Mi” at the top of the storefront. It looks like it may now be a residence on the southeast corner of the intersection of 13 Mile and H Drive.

These two little mostly-unknown ghost towns would make a fun afternoon drive some weekend...