Maybee: definitely a real town

Yes, the town is called Maybee, and yes, the locals have heard every joke — they make most of them first. The village in Exeter Township is named for Abram Maybee, who in 1873 platted a town along the brand-new Canada Southern rail line on land his father had farmed. Within a couple of years the railroad turned the corner of the township into a proper village: grain elevator, grist mill, hotel, churches, and the stone quarry that became the area’s economic anchor. Maybee incorporated in 1899 and has stayed proudly small ever since.

The quarry outlasted nearly everything else — the limestone operation near Maybee has been crushing stone for Michigan’s roads and concrete for more than a century, and the village even expanded its boundaries around quarry land in 2013. Day to day, Maybee is a few hundred people, a tavern, ballfields, and farm country in every direction; the kind of place where the name on the water tower doubles as the town’s sense of humor. Best little town in Michigan? Maybee.