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 ...
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, ...
. The community is located within Augusta Charter Township. As an unincorporated community, Willis has no legally defined boundaries or population statistics of its own but does have its own post office with the 48191 ZIP Code.
Geography
Willis sits at an elevation of above sea level. The community is located about southeast of
Ann Arbor
Ann Arbor is a city in Washtenaw County, Michigan, United States, and its county seat. The 2020 United States census, 2020 census recorded its population to be 123,851, making it the List of municipalities in Michigan, fifth-most populous cit ...
in the southeastern corner of Washtenaw County. It is centered along Willis Road between Potterville Drive to the east and Bunton Road to the west. The community of Whittaker is a few miles to the southwest.
Willis is served by Lincoln Consolidated School District.
History
The area received its first post office under the name Paint Creek in 1833. The community of Willis was originally known as Potter after early settler Willis L. Potter and developed just to the east of Paint Creek. Willis owes its creation to the building of a
Grand Trunk Railway
The Grand Trunk Railway (; ) was a Rail transport, railway system that operated in the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian provinces of Quebec and Ontario and in the List of states and territories of the United States, American sta ...
line in 1880. The Paint Creek post office was renamed Newcomb on September 27, 1881 and finally established as Willis on December 15, 1887. The post office name was changed to reflect Potter's first name.
A single railway line runs diagonally through the community and once contained a railroad station known as Willis Station. The line is currently operated by
Norfolk Southern Railway
The Norfolk Southern Railway is a Class I freight railroad operating in the Eastern United States. Headquartered in Atlanta, the company was formed in 1982 with the merger of the Norfolk and Western Railway and Southern Railway. The comp ...
but contains no station in the area.
The Willis post office remains in operation and is currently located at 8790 Bunton Road. The post office uses the 48191 ZIP Code, which encompasses most of the eastern portion of Augusta Charter Township and a small portion of London Township to the south in Monroe County.