The first tire factory in North America did not initially make car tires – Jalopnik

When Dr. Benjamin Franklin Goodrich drove into Akron, Ohio in 1870, the car was still a strange fever dream. So when he built America’s first tire factory, no one was thinking about cars – because there were no cars yet. Instead, BF Goodrich (later renamed BFGoodrich) released rubber fire hoses as its first product. Yes. The first fire departments relied on Goodrich hoses. The plant’s focus on rubber actually helped Akron transform from a quiet canal town to the future “Rubber Capital of the World.”

The company’s early catalog relied heavily on industrial rubber products, long before anything to do with automobiles. In 1890, just a few years after Dr. Goodrich died, the company began producing bicycle tires to meet recreational demand. The company then built its expertise in innovation and rubber chemistry in 1895, decades before anyone needed pneumatic tires for cars.

Even when the first automobiles made their way onto American roads in the late 19th century, automobile tires were not yet a real commercial opportunity. The company’s first production of automobile tires occurred in 1897, when Alexander Winton – of Winton Motor Car Company – approached Goodrich to invent pneumatic tires for his horseless railcars. In 1903, BFGoodrich made a big splash in the automotive industry by supplying the tires for Ford’s first vehicle, the Model A.

So yes, America’s first tire factory didn’t make car tires for 25 years. Just rubber gear, boots, belts and lots of cycling dreams.

Once Goodrich entered the automotive arena, he wasn’t just in the game. It started setting records. The tubing company scored several industry “firsts” that reshaped the tire world. Goodrich tires helped Horatio Nelson Jackson, using a Winton car, make the first cross-country road trip in 1903, proving that pneumatic tires could survive a transcontinental beating when others failed. They were also the first tires used to win consecutive Indy 500s in 1914 and 1915. In the aviation world, they served as landing gear for Charles Lindbergh’s “Spirit of St. Louis” in 1927, adding “helped cross the Atlantic” to their resume.

Goodrich introduced America’s first tubeless tire in 1947, a development that earned the company widespread recognition. In 1981, the tires were the first to orbit Earth, as the Columbia (STS-1) space shuttle used them on its maiden voyage. The company wasn’t shy in motorsports either, winning the 1986 Baja 1000, the 1999 Paris-Dakar rally and the 2006 World Rally Championship, and sponsoring events like the 2022 Mint 400. The innovations ultimately made the brand a force in wild off-road racing and rallying, making Goodrich a performance-oriented American icon.

BFGoodrich has not only ridden the wave of growth in the automotive sector. It helped define what reliable, modern tires should look like. Akron didn’t just make more rubber; it wrote tire history.

As the 20th century progressed, BFGoodrich underwent a long corporate evolution. By the 1980s, the company had merged its tire operations with Uniroyal, creating the Uniroyal-Goodrich Tire Company – a move intended to keep both companies competitive in a globalizing tire market. But in 1990, Uniroyal-Goodrich’s entire tire division was purchased by Michelin, marking the end of Goodrich as an independent American tire manufacturer.

Akron, which once thrived as the beating heart of American rubber production, saw its Goodrich plant gradually phased out as global production shifted elsewhere in 1987. The massive factory complex, once home to thousands of workers, eventually fell into disrepair and later became a popular subject of urban exploration photography documenting the fall of one of the city’s industrial giants.

Today, BFGoodrich exists as a performance and off-road sub-brand within Michelin, focusing on all-terrains, mud terrains and enthusiast tires. The company’s spirit lives on strongly in motorsport and adventure driving; Goodrich’s KO2 and other off-road lines are household names among truck and SUV fans. Even though the Akron plant is quiet these days, the legacy of America’s first tire company continues – not in rubber tubing or bicycle treads, but in the all-season, all-weather, all-terrain tires where BFGoodrich continues to make its mark.