Goodyear

The founding of The Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company in 1898 seems especially remarkable, for the beginning was anything but auspicious. Today, Goodyear measures sales of nearly $20 billion, although it took 53 years before the company reached the first billion-dollar-year milestone. And it all began in a converted strawboard factory on the banks of the Little Cuyahoga River in East Akron, Ohio.