Flint, Michigan - Encyclopedia

GEOGRAPHICAL NAMES

FLINT, a city and the county-seat of Genesee county, Michigan, U.S.A., on Flint river, 68 m. (by rail) N.W. of Detroit. Pop. (1890) 9803; (1900) 13,103, of whom 2165 were foreign-born; (1910, census) 36,550. It is served by the Grand Trunk and the Pere Marquette railways, and by an electric line, the Detroit United railway, connecting with Detroit. The city has a fine court-house (1904), a federal building (1908), a city hall (1908) and a public library. The Michigan school for the deaf, established in 1854, and the Oak Grove hospital (private) for the treatment of mental and nervous diseases, are here. Flint has important manufacturing interests, its chief manufactures being automobiles, wagons, carriages - Flint is called "the vehicle city," - flour, woollen goods, iron goods, cigars, beer, and bricks and tiles; and its grain trade is of considerable importance. In 1904 the total value of the city's factory product was $6,177,170, an increase of 31.1 % over that of 1900. The settlement of the place, then called the Grand Traverse of the Flint, began in 1820, but Flint's growth was very slow until 1831, when it was platted as a village; it was chartered as a city in 1855.