Any top 10 list is somewhat arbitrary — just as the 125-year mark is an arbitrary milestone to celebrate. With that in mind, though, there’s little doubt that the following stories represent much of what has been most important to the newspaper and the community in a long and far-ranging history:

1
Sit-Down Strike of 1936-37: For 44 days, workers occupied General Motors plants in Flint and elsewhere.

Journal artist Ken Dolan witnessed the Beecher tornado and drew this cover for a special edition a few weeks after the deadly storm.

2
Beecher tornado of 1953: The June 8 storm killed 116 people, injured 900 and destroyed at least 300 homes.

3
Billy Durant, the birth of the auto industry and the creation of GM: Durant’s vision and salesmanship, and a confluence of talent, money, infrastructure, labor and innovation, brought Flint the business that would define it and carry it through the 20th century.

4
Kayla Rolland: The 6-year-old’s death last year from a classmate’s gunshot at her Beecher elementary school became a community’s heartache and world news.

5
Hard times in the 1980s: GM job losses and plant closings
ravaged Flint amid a nationwide recession.

Floyd J. McCree

6
Floyd J. McCree becomes mayor: The Flint
City Council in 1966 picked McCree, a councilman,
to serve as the city’s first black mayor just as civil
rights and freedom from housing discrimination were becoming fever-pitch issues.

7
‘Roger & Me’: Michael Moore’s 1989 movie about downsizing put a scathing picture of Flint and GM before the world’s eyes.

8
Charles Stewart Mott and the Mott Foundation: Auto industry pioneer Mott also served on the General Motors board, as Flint mayor and in 1926 established his community-boosting foundation.

9
Buick leaves Flint: Buick in 1999 moved its headquarters from Flint to Detroit and shut down the Buick City Assembly Center — ending Buick production in Flint.

10
Community education: Frank J. Manley, head of physical education for Flint schools, drew the attention of the nation in the 1930s by opening school resources — pools, gyms, classrooms — to men, women and families after school hours and during summers.