KATELYN HIBBARD/Sun-Gazette Miniature rubber shoes showing the signature seal of the Lycoming Rubber Co. are on display at the Thomas T. Taber Museum, 858 W. Fourth St. The miniatures presumably were promotional handouts.

(EDITOR’S NOTE: Today the Sun-Gazette offers the next installment in a weekly history series that tells the stories of those who came before us.)

KATELYN HIBBARD/Sun-Gazette
Miniature rubber shoes showing the signature seal of the Lycoming Rubber Co. are on display at the Thomas T. Taber Museum, 858 W. Fourth St. The miniatures presumably were promotional handouts.

KATELYN HIBBARD/Sun-Gazette
Miniature rubber shoes showing the signature seal of the Lycoming Rubber Co. are on display at the Thomas T. Taber Museum, 858 W. Fourth St. The miniatures presumably were promotional handouts.

PHOTO PROVIDED
This postcard from 1909 shows an image of the Lycoming Rubber Co. facility at Rose Street and the former Erie Avenue.

PHOTO PROVIDED
Shown here is an advertisement placed by the Lycoming Rubber Co. in 1888.

With peak employment at nearly 3,000 and daily output of hundreds of thousands of pairs of shoes, the Lycoming Rubber Co. once was one of Williamsport’s greatest industries.

The factory at Rose Street and Erie (now Memorial) Avenue was founded in 1882 and made its first pair of shoes in 1883.

The rubber company manufactured tennis shoes, Keds sneakers, gym and yachting shoes and other footwear meant for summer use.

In his 1892 “History of Lycoming County,” John F. Meginness wrote of the company: “The officers for 1892 are as follows: president, B. C. Bowman; secretary, treasurer, and general manager, S.N. Williams; directors: B. C. Bowman, William Howard, J. Artley Beeber, C. La Rue Munson, S.N. Williams … The total value of their manufactured goods annually is $1,500,000 gross. There are 400 persons employed, 175 of whom are females and 225 males.”

Williamsport resident and historian Thad Meckley, author of “Williamsport’s Millionaire’s Row” and “Williamsport,” said the rubber company was founded in part — or wholly, according to some sources — by Samuel Norris Williams, listed above as S.N. Williams, who was born and raised in Williamsport.

Williams became a self-made millionaire during the lumber boom and through his other business ventures, including the rubber company. He also was Williamsport’s 14th mayor in 1899.

Lycoming Rubber’s parent company, U.S. Rubber, invented Keds sneakers in the early 1910s, a brand still popular today, and the Williamsport plant became the largest Keds manufacturer in the country.

In the 1910s and ’20s, the company was producing hundreds of thousands of Gaiters and Artics, gum shoes and Keds, and a few thousand pairs of Regent Keds. The factory expanded to about 450 feet in length.

At its peak, records show, the company employed nearly 3,000 people, and about 70 percent of those employees were women. In 1929, its payroll amounted to about $2 million, Meckley said.

Though it seemed in the 1920s that Lycoming Rubber only would keep growing, demand for its products fell drastically and the company moved to a sister factory in Naugatuck, Connecticut, in 1932.

The company’s facility still stands and has gone through a number of owners since its departure. Today, the building is known as the Pajama Factory.