My City January 2022

MYHISTORY

Argus / stock.adobe.com

The Mayors of Flint PART 1: OPENiNG THE OFFiCE

BY PETER HINTERMAN

After the establishment of the Michigan School for the Deaf, the building of St. Michael’s Catholic Church, and 44 years after Jacob Smith built his trading post at the Grand Traverse of the Flint River, the growing village of Flint became a city. After reaching a population of 2,000 in 1855, Flint was quickly becoming a center of commerce and industry in Michigan. Soon after being incorporated as a city, the rst municipal elections were held on April 2, 1855 in the city’s three early wards.†e next day, Grant Decker became the rst Mayor of Flint. †is series will chronicle each of Flint’s mayor’s throughout history, providing a short account of their professions, lives and decisions made in oˆce (if known). Some were men/women of great deeds, some of great controversy. Some simply acted as placeholders in time. Each of them, however, chaired a city important to its country and citizens on its path through triumph and heartbreak, and toward its revitalization.

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