About
Looking back, the founding of The Goodyear Tire &
Rubber Company in 1898 seems especially
remarkable, for the beginning was anything but
auspicious. The 38-year-old founder, Frank A.
Seiberling, purchased the company’s first plant
with a $3,500 down payment -- using money he
borrowed from a brother-in-law Lucius C. Miles.
The rubber and cotton that were the lifeblood of
the industry had to be transported from halfway
around the world, to a landlocked town that had
only limited rail transportation. Even the man the
company’s name memorialized, Charles Goodyear, had
died penniless 30 years earlier despite his
discovery of vulcanization after a long and
courageous search.
Yet the timing couldn't have been better. The
bicycle craze of the 1890s was booming. The
horseless carriage, some ventured to call it the
automobile, was a wide-open challenge. Even the
depression of 1893 was beginning to fade. So on
August 29, 1898, Goodyear was incorporated with a
capital stock of $100,000.
David E. Hill, who purchased $30,000 of stock,
became the first president. But it was the dynamic
and visionary founder, hard-driving Seiberling,
who chose the name and determined the distinctive
trademark. The winged-foot trademark, inspired by
a newel-post statuette of Mercury in the
Seiberling home, has been altered over the years.
Yet, it remains an integral part of the Goodyear
signature, a symbolic link with the company’s
historic past.
Something else about these legendary early years
lingers on through Goodyear’s history. Something
elusive and intangible, yet very real. Something
about the people. People like Seiberling, actually
trying to liquidate family-owned property in 1898
when he ended up taking that once-in-a-lifetime
chance to buy -- at a bargain -- the seven-acre
tract that became Goodyear. People like George M.
Stadelman, a man who avoided crowds and never made
a speech, yet had a gift of integrity and
foresight that guided Goodyear’s sales through a
critical 20 years. People like Paul W. Litchfield,
whose conviction and leadership helped inspire
Goodyear’s development for nearly six decades.
With just 13 employees, Goodyear production began
on November 21, 1898, with a product line of
bicycle and carriage tires, horseshoe pads and --
fitting the gamble Seiberling was making -- poker
chips. The first recorded payroll amounted to
$217.86 based on the prevailing wage of 13 to 25
cents an hour for a 10-hour day. After the first
full month of business, sales amounted to $8,246.
Since the first bicycle tire in 1898, Goodyear
pedaled its way toward becoming the world’s
largest tire company, a title it earned in 1916
when it adopted the slogan "More people ride on
Goodyear tires than on any other kind," becoming
the world’s largest rubber company in 1926.
Today, Goodyear measures sales of nearly $20
billion, although it took 53 years before the
company reached the first billion-dollar-year
milestone. And it all began in a converted
strawboard factory on the banks of the Little
Cuyahoga River in East Akron, Ohio. Spanning the
years, through all of those yesterdays, a legion
of firsts and facts and figures appears that
reflect the making of a company.