Genesee County, west of Lapeer County, is Michigan’s fifth-most-populous county, with a population of 425,790. It was named for Genesee County, New York.

The county seat of Genesee County is the city of Flint (pop. 102,434), seventh-largest city in Michigan. Flint reached its peak population of 196,940 in 1960.

Flint is on the Flint River.

General Motors Company was founded in Flint in 1908; the firm’s headquarters moved to Detroit in the 1920s. GM factories in the Flint area employed about 80,000 workers in the 1970s, but they now have fewer than 10,000 employees.

Flint Assembly now produces full-size trucks for GM.

Sit-Downers Memorial Park in Flint commemorates the 1936-37 United Auto Workers’ Flint Sit-Down Strike. After the strike, General Motors recognized the UAW as the workers’ only bargaining agent.

The monument

The Capitol Theatre in downtown Flint is currently being renovated.

It opened in 1928.

The 57-year-old Flint Weather Ball, which changes color when the weather changes, recently was renovated from the traditional letters CB (Citizens Bank) to FM (FirstMerit).

The University of Michigan-Flint, one of two satellite campuses of the university, has about 8,000 students.

Established in 1956

The 19-floor Genesee Towers was the tallest building in Flint from the time it was built in 1968 until it was demolished in 2013. The building sat empty for more than 10 years.

The lower eight floors were a parking garage.

The many well-known athletes from Flint include former Major League pitcher Jim Abbott – the left-hander who was born without a right hand.

He also starred for the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.

The blues-rock band Grand Funk Railroad, founded in Flint in 1969, based its name on the Grand Trunk Western Railroad, which ran through Flint.

They were most popular in the ’70s.

The Flint-Beecher Tornado in 1953, just north of Flint, was the deadliest tornado in Michigan history.

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