Akron industrialist F.A. Seiberling looked up to the rolling hills behind his rubber factory on East Market Street.
“Over there, I am going to build a city for Goodyearites,” he said.
Lesser leaders would have dismissed the venture as pure folly, but Seiberling was a visionary in business and real estate.
The co-founder of Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. announced his proposal to build a housing development for workers during a July 1912 meeting with factory foremen in the company lunchroom. He acquired 400 acres for the project.
“The main idea is to give our employees an opportunity to become homeowners at as low a cost and by as easy payments as possible,” Seiberling told the group 100 years ago.
“The Goodyear Allotment,” as it initially was called, would be built “on the heights overlooking Blue Pond” and afford “a commanding view of the city and surrounding country,” he said.
For a $100 down payment, workers could secure a new home within a 10-minute walk of the factory. The fireproof homes were to be constructed of brick, plaster or stucco, and available in three general types: “single,” “double” or “bungalow.” The first properties sold at cost for $1,800 to $3,500 (about $42,000 to $80,000 today).
“This is distinctly not a moneymaking proposition for the company or myself,” Seiberling told the Beacon Journal on July 20, 1912. “We only hope to place nice homes within the reach of our employees.”
At the time, the 14-year-old company had nearly 7,000 workers. The first phase of the allotment called for 100 houses.
Laying the groundwork
Seiberling hired Boston landscape architect Warren H. Manning to lay out the development, following the natural contours of the slopes. A few years later, Manning landscaped the Seiberling family’s new mansion, Stan Hywet.
Surveyors staked out the allotment and contractors made preparations for electricity, water, gas and sewage.
Norton Street was renamed Goodyear Boulevard as the gateway entrance to the development. A concrete bridge was built across the railroad tracks.
Goodyear held a contest in the Wingfoot Clan, the company newspaper, for employees to suggest street names.
“At the present time, the streets are designated by letters, which is only a temporary arrangement,” the Wingfoot Clan noted on Nov. 15, 1912.
“Names must be had for the streets and it would be appreciated if those interested would put suggestions for street names in the suggestion boxes. These names should not include any of those in use in Akron. … Here is your chance to christen a street.”
Earl T. Childs, a worker in the tool room, won a $2 prize for the best list of 10 names. He suggested Preston, Sprague, Benjamin, Saybrook, Andre, Trumbull, Sylvania, Reserve, Mayflower and Iroquois.
Only the first two were adopted immediately. The last suggestion was used later in the neighborhood.
Rolland U. Woodruff, a Goodyear watchman, became the first official resident of the allotment when he and his wife, May, and their two children moved into a tent near the site where their house was being built.
“Everything is fine and duzzy,” he told a reporter in June 1913. He said he had “never slept so soundly before.”
“Yes, indeed, it is the simple life for mine, now and forever more, two amens, until the snow begins to fly,” Woodruff joked.
Goodyear chemist Clayton W. Bedford and his wife, Grace, made local history in 1913 by welcoming the first baby born in the allotment. Lawrence A. Bedford weighed in at a healthy 12 pounds.
In a dedication ceremony Nov. 1, 1913, the allotment officially was christened as Goodyear Heights. The Woodruffs and Bedfords were the only two families, but work was progressing nearby.
Homes keep selling
Nearly 100 homes were completed by May 1914. Over the next year and a half, 60 more homes were finished. Nearly all of the initial 400 lots in Goodyear Heights were sold.
The second phase of construction began in the summer of 1916, eventually leading to the completion of more than 1,200 homes.
In a new contest for street names, Ellis Magnell won $5 for suggesting Madeira, St. Leger, Morningside, Sumatra, Java, Malacca, the Brooklands and Huguelet.
Thanks to Seiberling’s vision 100 years ago, families have lived for generations in sturdy homes in East Akron.
Summit County Common Pleas Judge Samuel G. Rogers, keynote speaker at the dedication ceremony, predicted great things for the neighborhood in 1913.
“Do not believe the sensational newspaper or the self-seeking politician who tells you that the world is going to rack and ruin,” Rogers told the audience.
“We are living under the best conditions this world has ever seen, and when we at last pass from here, we will leave to our children a heritage better than that which we have enjoyed.”
Beacon Journal copy editor Mark J. Price is the author of The Rest Is History: True Tales From Akron’s Vibrant Past, a book from the University of Akron Press. He can be reached at 330-996-3850 or mjprice@thebeaconjournal.com.
