Kelly-Springfield Tire Company

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Kelly-Springfield Tire Company was an American tire maker founded in 1894 in Springfield, Ohio by Edwin Kelly and Arthur Grant. In 1899 it was sold to the McMillin group for $1 million and renamed Consolidated Rubber Tire Company; the Kelly-Springfield name was later used for the New York sales arm. The Consolidated name was changed in 1914, and in 1932 the company became The Kelly-Springfield Tire Company. Manufacturing took place at plants in Akron and Wooster, Ohio, and a large Cumberland, Maryland plant opened in 1921 after the city offered land and funding. The first tire from Cumberland rolled off the line on April 2, 1921. In 1935 Goodyear bought Kelly-Springfield and kept it as a subsidiary. Edmund S. Burke was president from 1935 to 1959. The company expanded with new plants in Tyler, Texas (1962), Freeport, Illinois (1963), and Fayetteville, North Carolina (1969). The Cumberland plant closed in 1987, the same year Kelly-Springfield took over Lee Tire and Rubber. Corporate offices moved to Cumberland in 1987, and the old plant site was returned to the city. In 1994 Kelly-Springfield celebrated 100 years. In the 1990s it was absorbed by Goodyear and moved its headquarters to Akron; it was fully integrated into Goodyear North America in 1999. The Kelly-Springfield brand continues today as part of Goodyear.