The early bicycles built in the early 1800s had wooden wheels; so it was easy to see why their popularity did not jump until after the discovery of that great elastic but tough substance, rubber. The bicycle craze was booming, and the automobile fad was also set to take off, and both of those vehicles would require rubber. The costs would be high — rubber came from only one country, deep in Asia and with no rail transport — but Frank A. Seiberling saw a good business potential there. Borrowing $3,500 (equivalent to $90,000 today) from his brother in law for his down payment, he opened his first rubber making plant.

On this day, August 29, in 1889 Frank Seiberling incorporated the Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company, with a stock of $100,000.

The company launched production two months later, recording sales of $8,246 after the first month alone, and never looked back. Sieberling convinced Henry Ford to use his tires on all the Model T cars. By 1912 Goodyear expanded into making airplane tires, and by 1926 it was the largest rubber manufacturer. Fifty-three years after its founding, the Goodyear company crossed the billion-dollar sales threshold.