Bitely is an

unincorporated community An unincorporated area is a parcel of land that is not governed by a local general-purpose municipal corporation. (At p. 178.) They may be governed or serviced by an encompassing unit (such as a county) or another branch of the state (such as th ...

in Lilley Township, within

Newaygo County, Michigan Newaygo County ( ) is a county in the U.S. state of Michigan. As of the 2020 United States census, the population was 49,978. The county seat is White Cloud. The county was created in 1840, and was organized in 1851. It was either named for ...

, in the United States. It is within the

Manistee National Forest The Manistee National Forest is a national forest located in the Lower Peninsula of Michigan. It has a total area of . It was established in 1938, and combined with the Huron National Forest in 1945 for administrative purposes, creating the Huro ...

. It is near Bitely Lake, Lamoreaux Lake, Isaac Lake, Houseman Lake and several smaller lakes. It was a station on the

Chicago and West Michigan Railroad Chicago is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Illinois and in the Midwestern United States. With a population of 2,746,388, as of the 2020 census, it is the third-most populous city in the United States after New York City and Los ...

(later the Pere Marquette, then the Chesapeake and Ohio, now Marquette Rail) in 1889, and given a post office on September 13, 1889, with Archer D. Martin as its first postmaster. It was named for Steven Bitely, who built a sawmill there, but due to a typographical error, the post office was initially spelled as Biteley. The Bitely Homecoming parade is held the third Saturday of every July.

References

Unincorporated communities in Newaygo County, Michigan Grand Rapids metropolitan area 1889 establishments in Michigan Unincorporated communities in Michigan {{NewaygoCountyMI-geo-stub