Wellston 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 ...

and

census-designated place A census-designated place (CDP) is a Place (United States Census Bureau), concentration of population defined by the United States Census Bureau for statistical purposes only. CDPs have been used in each decennial census since 1980 as the counte ...

(CDP) in Norman Township, Manistee County,

Michigan Michigan ( ) is a peninsular U.S. state, state in the Great Lakes region, Great Lakes region of the Upper Midwest, Upper Midwestern United States. It shares water and land boundaries with Minnesota to the northwest, Wisconsin to the west, ...

, United States. Its population was 254 as of the 2020 census, down from 311 in

2010 The year saw a multitude of natural and environmental disasters such as the 2010 Haiti earthquake, the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, and the 2010 Chile earthquake. The 2009 swine flu pandemic, swine flu pandemic which began the previous year ...

. The community is in 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 ...

just south of M-55, about east of Manistee and about west of

Cadillac Cadillac Motor Car Division, or simply Cadillac (), is the luxury vehicle division (business), division of the American automobile manufacturer General Motors (GM). Its major markets are the United States, Canada and China; Cadillac models are ...

. Wellston has a

post office A post office is a public facility and a retailer that provides mail services, such as accepting letter (message), letters and parcel (package), parcels, providing post office boxes, and selling postage stamps, packaging, and stationery. Post o ...

with ZIP code 49689.

History

Wellston was named for its first postmaster, Adelmer J. Wells. The post office officially opened June 30, 1892. The town was founded by the Swigart Land Company along the Chicago and West Michigan Railroad. Wellston is home to the critically ill children's ministry Little Mary's Hospitality House, which was founded in 1982.

Geography

Wellston is in southeastern Manistee County, near the center of Norman Township. According to the

U.S. Census Bureau The United States Census Bureau, officially the Bureau of the Census, is a principal agency of the U.S. federal statistical system, responsible for producing data about the American people and economy. The U.S. Census Bureau is part of the U ...

, the CDP has an area of , of which , or 4.04%, are water. Two small lakes, Crystal Lake and Cranberry Lake, are within the CDP. M-55 is a highway that runs along the northern edge of the community.

Demographics

References

Unincorporated communities in Manistee County, Michigan Unincorporated communities in Michigan Census-designated places in Manistee County, Michigan Census-designated places in Michigan {{ManisteeCountyMI-geo-stub