AKRON, Ohio -- When Bridgestone Americas opened its $100 million tech center in Akron in 2012, some saw it as proof that the "Rubber City" still housed the heart of the U.S. tire business.

A subsidiary of the Tokyo-based Bridgestone Corp., Bridgestone Americas includes the old Firestone Tire & Rubber Co.

And the fate of Firestone, almost as much as the fate of Goodyear Tire & Rubber, the city's last home-grown tire company, is a symbol of the industry's meteoric rise at the beginning of the 20th Century and its dramatic decline and consolidation in the 1970s and 80s.

The Columbiana County-born Harvey Firestone started the company in 1896, in Chicago, after his layoff as a salesman for a Columbus buggy manufacturing company, according to Ohio History Central. His tiny company, with one employee, attached hard rubber to steel buggy wheels.

Firestone moved his company to Akron in 1900, where rubber products were already being made and the city had already been dubbed the "Rubber Capital of the World," Ohio History Central notes.

Firestone began manufacturing its own rubber in 1903, developed pneumatic tires in 1904 and won a contract to supply Henry Ford in 1905 enabling Firestone to boost its employee roles from a dozen to 130. By 1910, the company was producing a million tires.

World War II saw Firestone, B.F. Goodrich and Goodyear expand production to Brookpark, according to the Encyclopedia of Cleveland History.

And by 1950, tire companies in the region were turning out more than a third of the nation's tires and about 30 percent of all other rubber products.

The declines began as the century wound down and many of the old companies either merged or disappeared.

Bridgestone bought Firestone in 1988 for $2.6 billon, only days after Italian tire maker Pirelli had offered $1.9 billion, according to the Akron Beacon Journal.

Firestone and Bridgestone had earlier talked about creating U.S. joint ventures. The Japanese company was eager to get a foothold in the North American market, and Firestone's tire stores were part of the draw.

Financial analysts later told The Plain Dealer that Bridgestone never got its money's worth in the deal. But the acquisition saved the Firestone brand, and as it has turned out, Akron itself.

How bad was it?

Only the year before Bridgestone's purchase offer, Firestone CEO John Nevin, imported from Zenith Electronics in 1979, had moved the company headquarters to Chicago, where he owned a home.

In his short tenure at the head of Firestone, Nevin had closed 11 of 17 tire plants, leading to a "strictly antagonistic" relationship with the company's union, Plain Dealer articles from the era show.

Bridgestone's purchase at least brought the headquarters back to Akron, Plain Dealer articles reported. But in 1992, Bridgestone Americas moved the headquarters to Nashville, Tenn., where it had tire factories.