The Diamond Rubber Company was a manufacturer of vehicle

tire A tire (American English) or tyre (British English) is a ring-shaped component that surrounds a Rim (wheel), wheel's rim to transfer a vehicle's load from the axle through the wheel to the ground and to provide Traction (engineering), t ...

s and other rubber products at the end of the 19th, and into the early 20th century in the United States. The Diamond Rubber Company was incorporated in March of 1894 in

Akron, Ohio Akron () is the fifth-largest city in the U.S. state of Ohio and is the county seat of Summit County, Ohio, Summit County. It is located on the western edge of the Glaciated Allegheny Plateau, about south of downtown Cleveland. As of the 2020 C ...

by the owner of the

Diamond Match Company The Diamond Match Company has its roots in several nineteenth century companies. In the early 1850s, Edward Tatnall of Wilmington, Delaware was given an English recipe for making matches by a business acquaintance, William R. Smith. In 1853, Tatn ...

O.C. Barber Ohio Columbus Barber (April 20, 1841 – February 4, 1920) was an American businessman, industrialist and philanthropist. He was called "America's Match King" because of his controlling interest in the Diamond Match Company, which had 85 percent ...

. Barber had moved the match company plant to his adjacent self-named planned town of

Barberton, Ohio Barberton is a city in Summit County, Ohio, United States. The population was 26,550 at the 2010 census. Lying directly southwest of Akron, it is a suburb of the Akron metropolitan area. History Barberton was founded in 1891 by industrialist O. ...

in order to boost the town's economy which had taken a hit during the

Panic of 1893 The Panic of 1893 was an economic depression in the United States that began in 1893 and ended in 1897. It deeply affected every sector of the economy, and produced political upheaval that led to the political realignment of 1896 and the pres ...

. He decided to use the abandoned Diamond Match Company facility in Akron for his new rubber products factory. The Diamond Rubber Company was located in the southwestern part of Akron, adjacent to the

Ohio and Erie Canal The Ohio and Erie Canal was a canal constructed during the 1820s and early 1830s in Ohio. It connected Akron with the Cuyahoga River near its outlet on Lake Erie in Cleveland, and a few years later, with the Ohio River near Portsmouth. It also ...

, on the southwest side of Falor Street. The B.F. Goodrich plant was located across the street, on the northeast side of Falor. Today, Falor Street is named West Falor Street. Some later sources have the company founded as the Sherbondy Rubber Company in 1893 or 1894 with its name changing to Diamond Rubber Company in 1896. But no such listing is found for Sherbondy Rubber Company in the Akron city directories for those years, or any years. Instead, it is the Diamond Rubber Company that first appears in the 1894 Akron city directory, which also includes the information that it was incorporated in March of that year. However, according to the publication ''The Growth of an Ideal, Embracing the History of the Goodrich Company, and the Economy of Factory and Branch Organization and Operation'', by the B.F. Goodrich Company in 1918 (part of the Goodrich Employees Reading Course), "The removal of the Diamond Match Company to Barberton left vacant the buildings occupied in Akron, and in 1894, Mr. Ohio C. Barber, then President of the Diamond Match Company, with his associates incorporated the Sherbondy Rubber Company, whose home was to be the discarded plant of the match company...". "In 1896 Mr. Barber took a more active interest in the company and the name was changed to the Diamond Rubber Company. According to the 1894 Akron City Directory's Incorporated Companies section, the Diamond Rubber Company first appeared at the Falor location previously occupied by the Diamond Match Company, with G. F. Sherbondy serving as Vice-President, and Walter Sherbondy serving as Superintendent. G. F. Sherbondy was replaced by J. K. Robinson as Vice-President of Diamond Rubber Company in 1896. Walter Sherbondy was granted U.S. patent 499,600 in 1893 for his design of a self-healing pneumatic tire. The book ''Rubber: An American Industrial History'' states "Diamond Rubber was started in 1893 by the Sherbondy brothers (George, Walter and William)...". "The original capital came from the "Match King", O.C. Barber of Akron, President of the famous Diamond Match Company. He later took over Diamond Rubber". In 1898, Harvard-trained chemist Arthur H. Marks was hired by Diamond. Marks invented a process to recycle old rubber. In 1900, Diamond constructed a new plant to utilize this patent in the recycling of old rubber. In 1904, Diamond and B.F. Goodrich entered into a rubber recycling joint venture, incorporated as the ''Alkali Rubber Company'', and a new plant was constructed adjacent to the existing Diamond and B.F. Goodrich plants in Akron. In March of 1912, the Diamond Rubber Company was bought out by and merged with the B.F. Goodrich Company. The Diamond brand name and product line were retained and a subsidiary Diamond Rubber Company created for the marketing and manufacturing of them.''The Growth of an Ideal, Embracing the History of the Goodrich Company...'', B.F. Goodrich Company, 1918, pp.11 et seq.
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References

Old Auto News

1895 Akron City Directory, p.23

1894 Akron City Directory, p.25

1893-4 Akron City Directory, p.214 opp.

1892-3 Akron City Directory, p.177 opp.

The Growth of an Ideal, Embracing the History of the Goodrich Company, and the Economy of Factory and Branch Organization and Operation

Rubber: An American Industrial History
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External links

Vintage Postcards depicting the Diamond Rubber Company facilities in Akron
Tire manufacturers of the United States Manufacturing companies based in Ohio Manufacturing companies established in 1894 Companies based in Akron, Ohio