One of the largest rubber factories in the United States located in Akron, Ohio, the rubber center of the United States. This view shows plants number one and two and the steel products plant. It covers a great many acres and employs thousands of people.
Harvey Samuel Firestone was born on December 20, 1868, at his family’s farm in Columbiana, Ohio. After graduating from Columbiana High School, Firestone worked for the Columbus Buggy Company before starting his own business in 1890. Firestone soon saw the potential for marketing automobile tires which led to the founding of the Firestone Tire and Rubber Company, a…
Constructed at a cost of $2 million, Firestone’s research laboratory sat on a hill overlooking the vast factory complex of the Firestone empire. At the time, this three-story brick structure was one of the world’s largest and most complete laboratories for rubber and plastics research.
In its first year of operation, the Firestone grossed more than $100,000 in profit. Initially, the company was not involved in the actual production of rubber. Instead, they purchased premade rubber and attached it to carriage wheels.
It all began at Sweitzer Street and Miller Avenue in 1900. That’s where Harvey S. Firestone began the world famous Firestone Tire & Rubber Co. Less than 50 years later the company would grow to include 48 factories spread out over 19 states and 10 countries.
“High on a hill overlooking the Firestone Tire and Rubber Company’s plants is the company’s new $2 million research laboratory, one of the world’s largest and most complete laboratories for rubber and plastics research. In this three story, sound-proof, air-conditioned brick building scientists have the privacy and seclusion they need for research that will make possible new…
“It takes energy, foresight and ability to pull against the current.” – Harvey Firestone Harvey Firestone was convinced that there was a large market to be tapped in automobile tires. His vision would become the Firestone Tire & Rubber Company. By 1926, Firestone’s company was producing more than 10 million tires a year, about 25…
The rubber boom brought with it thousands of jobs to the Akron area, but in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, many of the workers faced low wages and dangerous conditions. Organizers of the United Rubber Workers sought to improve the lives of workers. The URW formed in 1935 and organized their first major strike on Akron’s rubber…
Firestone had its origins in the rubber city. Founded in1900, the company started operations with just 12 employees. Together, Firestone and Goodyear (also an Akron company) were the largest suppliers of automotive tires in North America for over 75 years. In 1906 Henry Ford chose Firestone for Model T original equipment tires.
The Firestone Tire and Rubber Company founder Harvey Firestone, had a personal friendship with Henry Ford, and used this to become the original equipment supplier of Ford Motor Company automobiles, and was also active in the replacement market.
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 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…