page_title: Old Hell Lake
section_title: Etymology
hierarchical_section_title: Old Hell Lake / Etymology
caption_attribution_description: Cookery on J.R. Booth's timber raft. Ottawa River.
context_page_description: Old Hell Lake is a body of water in Long County, Georgia, United States, occurring at an elevation of roughly 15 feet above mean sea level.
context_section_description: There are a number of possible origins for the name. One suggests that it refers to the adjacent great "hellish" swamp. But the more likely source is thought to be from a time in Georgia history when timber rafts where a common sight on the Altamaha River. It would be a "riverman's moniker" referencing the Bight as a particularly troublesome bend in the river, with associated dangerous currents, where a pilot and crew might lose "their wages, their timber, and occasionally their lives". So it is most likely that Old Hell Bight was named first, then influenced the naming of the adjacent lake. The name was collected by the United States Geological Survey between 1976 and 1979 and entered into the Geographic Names Information System on September 25, 1979.
caption: Timber Raft 1880
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