The company was founded in 1884 by Edwin S. Kelly and fellow entrepreneur Arthur W. Grant. Just five years later, these men would sell their company to the McMillin Company for $1 million. At that time the company was called the Consolidated Rubber Tire Company. It took on the name Kelly Springfield Tire Company in 1914.
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.
Born in Ripley, New York in 1841, Benjamin Franklin Goodrich pursued an education in medicine and served as an assistant surgeon in the Union Army during the U.S. Civil War. After the war, Goodrich pursued a career in business and entered into a real estate partnership with John P. Morris of New York City. In 1869…
Goodyear built its first blimp in 1912. In 1928 the company was awarded a contract to build the Navy’s rigid airships Akron and Macon.
“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…
By 1930 Goodyear had pioneered what would later become known as “tundra tires” for smaller aircraft — the “airwheel” aviation wheel-rim/tire sets were initially available in sizes up to 46 inches in diameter.
USS Akron flys proudly over the Goodyear plant. She was the world’s first purpose-built flying aircraft carrier, carrying F9C Sparrowhawk fighter planes which could be launched and recovered while she was in flight. The Goodyear company is named after American Charles Goodyear, inventor of vulcanized rubber. The first Goodyear factory opened in Akron, Ohio, in…
“Goodyear-Zeppelin Corporation’s Factory and Dock located on the grounds of Akron’s Municipal Airport (Akron Fulton International). This building is 1,196 feet in length, 325 feet in width and 211 feet high, equal to a 22 story building. There are 3,600,000 pounds of steel used in the doors and 5,350 tons of structural steel in the…
The USS Macon was built at the Goodyear Airdock in Springfield Township (Akron) by the Goodyear-Zeppelin Corporation. This was by far the biggest airship ever to be built in America. A team of experienced German airship engineers—led by Chief Designer Karl Arnstein—instructed and supported design and construction of both the U.S. Navy airships Macon and Akron.
By 1926 Goodyear was the largest rubber company in the world. Only four years earlier it was forced to temporarily halt production of racing tires due to heavy competition. Nevertheless, the popularity of the Goodyear tire on the racing circuit led to a popular demand for the return of the brand.
“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…
Was Goodyear big in Akron? Oh yeah. By the early 1900’s this plant had one million square feet of rubber making floor space and covered 41 acres!
The First Flying Aircraft CarrierBetween September 1931 and April 1933, the Navy’s USS Akron (ZRS-4) sailed the skies as the world’s first purpose-built flying aircraft carrier. Designed to revolutionize naval aviation, the Akron housed F9C Sparrowhawk fighter planes inside its massive body. These planes could be launched and recovered mid-flight using an innovative trapeze system,…
Building Airship ZRS-4 Construction of Airship ZRS-4 began on October 31, 1929 at the Goodyear-Zeppelin Airdock. wish was a purpose-built hanger for the construction of these massive airships. On November 7 that year, Rear Admiral William A. Moffett, the Chief of the U.S. Navy’s Bureau of Aeronautics, drove the “golden rivet” in the ship’s first main ring. Erection of the hull sections began…
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…
The Goodyear-Zeppelin Airdock was a purpose-built facility for the construction of large airships. The $2.2 million building is over 200 feet tall and more than 1,000 feet long. Most remarkable, the entire length of the building is free of interior supports like pillars or struts. At the time of its construction in 1929, the air dock was the…
A 1968 factory explosion at the Mohawk Rubber Plant caused the death of 25-year-old Thomas Schultz of Coventry Township.
Goodyear entered the fledgling aviation industry when it established its aeronautics department in 1910. The company built its first balloon in 1912 and the next year began building and flying balloons in competition.
The first Goodyear factory opened in Akron, Ohio, in 1898. The thirteen original employees manufactured bicycle and carriage tires, rubber horseshoe pads, and poker chips. The company grew with the advent of the automobile. In this image, an Akron & Barberton Belt steam train switches cars at Goodyear’s east Akron factory.
The Marathon Rubber Co. of Cuyahoga Falls/Akron opened in 1912. They manufactured a variety of rubber products including tires, tubes, and belts. The plant pictured here was located on Front Street at the end of Sackett Avenue. Marathon Tire and Rubber Co. formed from the reorganization of the original Marathon Company with C.C. Osmun serving…
Founded in Akron in 1870 as Goodrich, Tew & Co. by Dr. Benjamin Franklin Goodrich. The company name was changed to the “B.F. Goodrich Company” in 1880, to BFGoodrich in the 1980s, and to “Goodrich Corporation” in 2001.
Mr. Miller served as the Secretary and Sales Manager for the Diamond Rubber Company in Akron, Ohio.
Local residents collected 13,600 dollars to encourage Goodrich to move his plant from New York to Akron. At this time, no other rubber manufacturers existed west of the Appalachian Mountains. Goodrich opened his Akron plant, the Akron Rubber Works, in March 1871. Goodrich first employed twenty workers. The plant made numerous items but focused on…
The factory was located at Sweitzer and Cole Avenues in Akron, Ohio. B. F. Goodrich purchased the company in 1930 and continued operations there until 1957.
Built and previously owned by the Goodyear-Zeppelin Corporation, later Goodyear Aerospace, the massive Airdock was constructed in 1929.at a cost of $2.2 million.