The Portage Hotel at Main Street and Market Street replaced the Empire House Hotel in 1912. The Portage was Akron’s leading hotel until construction of the Mayflower Hotel. In 1935, in the Portage Hotel’s ballroom, Akron’s rubber workers created the United Rubber Workers (URW) union.
Covering more than a million square feet and with thirty acres of floor space, Miller was one of the largest rubber factories in the United States. Miller Rubber Co. manufactured Tires, Tubes, Accessories, Repair Materials, Drug Sundries, Bathing Wear, Shuglovs, Rubber Balls, Rubber Toys, and many other Moulded Rubber Goods.
B. F. Goodrich Company, major American manufacturing company of the 20th century, noted for its production of automobile tires and ruber products. In The Beginning In 1869 Dr. Benjamin Franklin Goodrich and his brother-in-law, Harvey W. Tew, purchased the Hudson River Rubber Company, a small business in Hastings-on-Hudson, New York. The following year they accepted an…
Sumner Street at East Voris, Akron 11, Ohio
The Philadelphia Rubber Works Co. was formed in 1910 after the merger of the Philadelphia Rubber Works, which had been organized in 1880, and the Alkali Rubber Co., which was started in 1904. The company manufactured reclaimed rubber.
Harvey Firestone’s Vision The Firestone Tire and Rubber Company was founded by Harvey S. Firestone in 1900. In the early days, they supplied pneumatic tires for wagons, buggies, and other forms of wheeled transportation common in the era. Firestone soon saw the massive potential for marketing automobile tires. Before long, under his leadership, the company became a…
Akron’s Downtown Union Station Akron’s second Union Station was constructed in 1891 and had several addition made before being demolished in 1951. It was located between East Market Street and Park Street. The station served three major railroads including the Baltimore & Ohio, the Cleveland Akron & Columbus, and the Erie.
City Hospital started as a dream of Boniface DeRoo, a resident of Middlebury. Upon his death, DeRoo left approximately $10,000 for the establishment of Akron’s first hospital. “the balance of my estate, real and personal, to the city of Akron, to be held in trust and appropriated by said city for the buying of real…
Ohio National Guard Armory in Akron, Ohio
Akron’s Firestone Tire and Rubber Company participated in the Century of Progress – World’s Fair, in Chicago. Their Factory and Exhibition Building contained a complete production line of the most modern and efficient tire-making machinery in the world. Firestone produced Gum-Dipped Tires from raw materials to the finished tire at the exhibit. In the Exhibit Hall they…
The First Methodist Episcopal Church on the corner of Broadway and Church Streets. This building was destroyed by a fire in 1911. Thanks to Lewis Miller’s (1829-99) Akron Plan, First Methodist Episcopal Church of Akron was at the center of an architectural movement to improve the Sunday school experience. Under Miller’s plan, Sunday schools were built in a…