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A 12-foot bronze rubber worker by Zanesville sculptor Alan Cottrill stands in the roundabout at Main and Mill streets in downtown Akron. The city unveiled it on 13 May 2021 on a granite base shaped like Akron and Summit County.
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Rubber Worker and Tire statue
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41.08258° N, 81.51787° W
FIELD GUIDE
The story
A twelve-foot bronze tyre worker stands, according to the Akron Stories project, in the middle of a downtown Akron roundabout. Mayor Dan Horrigan described the statue as a tribute to the workers whom the Akron Stories project credits with making Akron the "Rubber Capital of the World". Zanesville sculptor Alan Cottrill created the figure, which shows a rubber worker hand wrapping a tyre, and the city unveiled it at Main and Mill streets on 13 May 2021. It stands on a two-tiered granite base, one tier shaped like the city of Akron and the other like Summit County.
The idea began with a local advocate who in 2016 read a letter in the Akron Beacon Journal lamenting that the city had no memorial to its rubber workers. The Akron Stories project says the city commissioned the statue in 2019. According to The Devil Strip in 2021, the figure is modelled on a 1917 photograph of an unidentified man preparing a tyre for vulcanisation, best known as the cover of the book Wheels of Fortune. It was first scheduled to debut in September 2020; the pandemic delayed the materials for the base, and the May ceremony was invitation-only.
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WHAT TO EXPECT
According to Akron Stories, a 12-foot bronze statue stands at the centre of the Main and Mill roundabout, with a commemorative brick plaza, bench and signage on the northeast corner. The story kiosk there was damaged in 2023 and is to be replaced by a sign with a QR code.
ACCESS
In the middle of the roundabout at South Main and Mill streets in downtown Akron. Akron Stories says it can be seen from all four corners, with the main viewing area on the northeast corner by the library.
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