Goodyear, Firestone and General Tire, Akron called itself the “Rubber Capital of the World,” and the fortunes of the city were tied to the synthetic-rubber industry.

As early as the 1840s, scientists added natural rubber to pavement (.pdf) to create surfaces that resisted cracks and better repelled water. Goodyear President Paul Litchfield was so impressed by the rubberized roadways he’d seen on a visit to the Netherlands that he donated synthetic rubber for a real-world test of rubber roads in Akron, the first such test on U.S. soil.

The rubberized asphalt was put down along a stretch of  West Exchange Street, a main Akron thoroughfare. The rubber road opened to the public Sept. 7, 1948, complete with a sign at its terminus that read, “Here ends the first rubber street in America.”

In reality, the road surface only contained between 5 and 7 percent rubber. The rest, as always, was asphalt.

Rubber companies immediately jumped on the rubber-road bandwagon, with dry-powder or latex rubber additives sold under brand names such as Rub-R-Road and Pliopave. Roads from Ohio to Virginia got the rubber treatment at an added cost of $7.25 per cubic mile (about $60 in today’s moolah).

Engineers eventually questioned the benefits of rubberized roads. At the time, pure asphalt was cheap, rubberized asphalt was more expensive, and studies didn’t show any clear advantages of roads paved with rubber.

West Exchange Street was torn up and repaved in 1959.

It was only a few years later, in 1965, that an engineer for the city of Phoenix, Arizona, named Charlie McDonald found a way to blend shredded “crumb” rubber from waste tires into asphalt. With an abundant supply of waste tires, rubber roads once again became popular, especially in warm climates where rubberized asphalt is more resistant to reflective and thermal cracking.

Rubberized asphalt remains most popular in Arizona, where rubberized Phoenix-area roads are touted as “quiet roads” that can reduce the decibel level of road noise up to 12 percent, sometimes negating the need for sound barriers.

While West Exchange Street is now conventional asphalt, Akron’s rubber road lives on nearby in a more-modern incarnation. The pedestrian walkway along the Erie Canal (shown above) is made of crumb rubber and runs beneath the Exchange Street overpass.

Source: Various

Photo: City of Akron

See Also:

• Dec. 10, 1845: The Pneumatic Tire, an Idea Ahead of Its Time
• Dec. 29, 1766: He Put the Mac in Mackintosh
• July 23, 1995: Inventors Hall of Fame Opens Doors in Akron
• EPA Tests Porous Pavement, Greener Gardens
• New Roads Solid as Crushed Rock
• Autopia: Streets & Highways
• March 17, 1948: William Gibson, Father of Cyberspace
• June 3, 1948: Interesting Idea, But Will It Fly?
• June 14, 1948: TV Guide Prototype Hits N.Y. Newsstands
• June 21, 1948: Columbia's Microgroove LP Makes Albums Sound Good
• July 28, 1948: IG Farben Explosion Punctuates Nuremberg Trial
• Oct. 26, 1948: Death Cloud Envelops Pennsylvania Mill Town
• Sept. 7, 1998: If the Check Says 'Google Inc.,' We're 'Google Inc.'

Authors: Keith Barry

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