Saturday, May 17, 2008

Little Missouri


A 1938-40 photograph of 1209 Parkwood in Flint's "Little Missouri" neighborhood by Edwin Locke of the U.S. Film Service. Courtesy of The Making of Modern Michigan.


View Larger Map




9 comments:

  1. Good find. I always thought Little Missouri was in Flint, not Burton. Many Flintoids originally came from the southern Missouri / northeast Arkansas region. Paragould, Arkansas being a major source if I recall.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. It is in Flint. I lived there my entire life.

      Delete
  2. I think Little Missouri was a loose definition for any south side neighborhood populated with large numbers of white Ozark immigrants. The Fenton Rd. / Saginaw St. corridor from the Grand Funk tracks to Maple Ave. would be the wider region.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I think there is more than one neighborhood that is called Little Missouri. And I suspect Flint is not the only area with such a neighborhood. The street on the map shown, Parkwood, is outside Flint proper. Flint City Limits are at Hemphill Rd. South of Hemphill, except for the South Flint Plaza, is either in the City of Burton or Flint Township. There may be a piece of this neighborhood in Flint Twp. near Pickwick Village, but the streets dead end and you can't really see one neighborhood from the other. But it is outside the City of Flint.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I grew up on Parkwood in the middle of Little Missouri or as we call it to this day "Little MO". while it is outside of Flint proper it is Flint Township. The official address of any of the streets had a G before the numbers indicating that it was in the Twp. But when you send the mail you addressed it to Flint and put the ZIP. Many great memories of The neighborhood one of the guys even wrote a book about it called "Little MO". Great place to grow up.

      Delete
    2. Two more Little Missouris ; West of Ballenger /South of Flushing Road, and West of Ballenger/ South of Corunna Road. Both in Flint Township (more or less).

      Delete
    3. While these neighborhoods may contain the essence of Little MO, neither of these are actual Little MO. I lived for 30 years on the other side of Flushing Rd. and I NEVER heard that neighborhood called Little Missouri. Cycle Hills yes, but not Little MO. Mayfair and the neighborhoods off of Lavelle Rd. are similar, but they are not LM either.



      Little Missouri is exclusively a south side / Burtucky thing. Wait... 'tucky?

      Delete
  4. We lived on the "other side of the tracks" east of Fenton, South of Bristol. Lone Pine Trailer Park. The folks on the west side of Fenton Road were the upper class. They actually had a house.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Puts things in perspective. I always wanted to live in Picwic. Funny, I wouldn't change a thing about living in that neighborhood

      Delete

Thanks for commenting. I moderate comments, so it may take a while for your comment to appear. You might enjoy my book about Flint called "Teardown: Memoir of a Vanishing City," a Michigan Notable Book for 2014 and a finalist for the 33rd Annual Northern California Book Award for Creative NonFiction. Filmmaker Michael Moore described Teardown as "a brilliant chronicle of the Mad Maxization of a once-great American city." More information about Teardown is available at www.teardownbook.com.