Hidden History of Flint

Beneath Flint’s auto history lies a buried past. Local Civil War hero Franklin Thompson was actually Sarah Edmonds in disguise. Thread Lake’s Lakeside Amusement Park offered seaplane rides and a giant roller coaster partly built over the water before closing in 1931. Smith-Bridgman’s, the largest department store in town, reigned supreme for more than a century at the same location. And the city’s most prolific inventor, Lloyd Copeman, created the electric stove, flexible ice cube tray and automatic toaster. Gary Flinn showcases the obscure and surprising elements of the Vehicle City’s past, including how the 2014 water crisis was a half century in the making.