Akron, OH Summary

Akron, known as “the Rubber Capital of the World,” and “the Home of Breakfast Cereal,” is a city of 223,000 located 35 miles south of Cleveland and the St Lawrence Seaway in the northeastern part of the state. Covering 54 square miles, it commands the highest point on the Ohio and Erie Canal. The name Akron is derived from the Greek word for “high.” Simon Perkins, promoter of the Ohio and Erie Canal, laid out the town in 1825. The canal opened in 1827 and Akron flourished.

Benjamin Franklin Goodrich opened a rubber factory here in 1870; it aroused little interest. It took the “horseless carriage” to spark the future of Akron—its rubber industry boomed between 1910 and 1920. Other thriving nineteenth-century businesses included iron manufacturing, farm implements production, pottery, flour milling, and cereal making.

In 1854 Ferdinand Schumacher began selling his homemade oatmeal, later founding Quaker Oats. Today’s Quaker Square Mall and Entertainment Complex, in downtown Akron, is carved from the original Quaker Oats cereal mill. The Akron Hilton Inn is converted from the Quaker Oats silos, 120 feet tall and 24 feet in diameter; they once housed more than 1.5 million bushels of grain. The 196 hotel rooms are perfectly round and contain 450 square feet of space—50 percent more than the average hotel room.

Akron once led the world in the production of rubber goods. Local production is now minimal, but Akron is still the corporate home of Goodyear, Genic, and Uniroyal Goodrich. The Goodyear World of Rubber depicts the history of rubber, and exhibits a rubber plantation, tires, memorabilia of Charles Goodyear, and a reproduction of his workshop. There is a videotape describing the tire production process, and a self-guided tour.

The Stan Hywet Hall and Gardens were built between 1911 and 1915 by Frank A. Seiberling, founder of the Goodyear and Seiberling Rubber companies. The 65-room house is a fine example of Tudor Revival architecture. The decor includes Tudor and Stuart furniture, antique silver, pewter, and sixteenth- and seventeenthcentury Flemish tapestries. The 70-acre grounds include a fully restored English garden, lagoons, scenic vistas, and a Japanese garden.

The Simon Perkins Mansion, the estate of Simon Perkins Jr, son of Akron’s founder, is a stone Greek Revival structure, built in 1835. It is furnished with glass, Victorian costuming, and pottery. Across the street is the John Brown House. Brown was a sheep farmer and liberator of slaves who was hanged. His farmstead contains period clothing and firearms. The Hower House is a handsome Second Empire-Italianate mansion, built in 1871 for industrialist John Henry Hoover. It has a lavish interior and original family furnishings.

Today Akron is a center for scientific research. The Firestone and Goodyear Laboratories focus on rubber and plastics research. The original spacesuits worn by US astronauts were made and fitted by B.F. Goodrich. The University of Akron’s Institute of Polymer Science is renowned for its work. The Akron Museum of Art is an 1899 Italian Renaissance-style post office that has been has been transformed into an exciting modern facility. Then there is Dr Bob’s Home, where Alcoholics Anonymous was founded in 1935. Memorabilia and a library that belonged to Dr Bob Smith and his wife are housed here.

Inventure Place is a dramatic contemporary building in downtown Akron, designed by architect James Stewart Polshek. It pays homage to great men and women inventors. It’s a fun place, where potatoes are clocks, eggs fly, the sky can be plucked, and a person can take off in a bathtub. Hands-on exhibits, displays, and workshops help visitors appreciate the contributions of great thinkers. The building’s centerpiece is a soaring stainless-steel sail, which houses five tiers of National Inventors Hall of Fame exhibits.

The Akron Civic Theatre has a lavish design, and a ceiling with blinking stars and floating clouds —it is one of the last “atmospheric” theaters. The Carousel Dinner Theatre is America’s largest professional dinner theater. The All-American Soap Box Derby has been held at Derby Downs each August since 1934. Boys and girls ages 9 to 16 who have won local championships all over the world compete in their homemade gravity-propelled vehicles. The soap box idea was developed by Dayton, Ohio, news photographer Myron Scott, who covered a race of cars built by boys in his hometown and then created a national program. Akron can be reached by car by I-76, I-77, and Hwy 8, or by bus or plane.