My City August 2022

Harvey J. Mallery 1930-31

Ray A. Brownell 1929-30, 1933-34

e council’s rst choice as mayor, Mallery was one of the rst o cial “company men” (those with direct ties to General Motors) chosen to take the reins of the city. He was born in Flint in 1882 to James G. Mallery, president and operator of the Castree-Mallery Co., a maker of agricultural implements. Harvey J. Mallery was educated in the city and started his career with the Weston-Mott Corporation, sticking with the company’s absorption into General Motors where he assumed the job of ac countant with the GM inspection and production branch until 1918. e next year, Mallery joined Harry H. Basset,Walter P. Chrysler, Albert Champion and others as principal investors in the Flint branch of the Reyn olds-Chrysler Co., dealing in investments, insurance and real estate. In 1924, Mallery was named comptroller of the Buick Motor Co. In October 1924, he was chosen by Gov. Alex J. Groesbeck as Michigan’s o cial delegate at the Southern Commercial Congress held in Atlanta, GA. ere, he welcomed representatives of Latin Ameri can countries to discuss, identify and solve international trade problems. During his term in o ce, the Industrial Bank Building (Mott Foundation Building) was erected as Flint’s tallest structure. Mallery died in 1970 and was buried in Glenwood Cemetery. e Harvey J. Mallery Charitable Trust was established upon his death. 

Born in 1876, Brownell was a member of the Dort Motor Car Co. and director of the Worker’s Bank in Flint. During the 1929 election, plans were in the works in Flint to change the charter and the position of mayor. In response to the scan dal-plagued early terms of Mayor William H. McKeighan, the city’s answer to his alleged bribery and vote-rigging was to do away with the process of citizen selection in lieu of a coun cil-manager form of government in which the “mayor” was cho sen from the elected city council. (Still, William H. McKeighan found a way to rig the system and get himself “chosen” as mayor during this time by installing cronies on the city council.) In this system, the mayor acted as more of a Šgurehead or “weak” mayor. Ray A. Brownell would be the last elected or “strong” mayor until the election system resumed in 1975. Before his Šrst term in o‘ce, Brownell worked hard to build a stadium in the city that would be the largest “west of Harvard University” and, during his elected term, saw his dream fulŠlled when he opened Atwood Stadium on June 8, 1929. Brownell was selected as mayor (this time by the city council) for a second term. He died in 1954 and was buried in Avondale Cemetery.

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