Auburn Rubber Company

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The Auburn Rubber Company was a rubber products manufacturer best known for its line of children's toys.

Started in Auburn, Indiana, in 1913 as the Double Fabric Tire Company, it made tires for the Auburn Automobile Company. In the 1920s, the company changed its name to Auburn Rubber, phased out its production of tires and introduced new products such as shoe-soling sheets. In 1935, it began making rubber toys, including toy cars, trucks, tractors and animals. During World War II, it made soles for combat boots and gaskets for so-called "jerry cans."

The company was sold in 1959 and moved to Deming, New Mexico, in a transaction described by author Jonathan Kwitny in his book, Vicious Circles: The Mafia in the Marketplace (W.W. Norton: 1979), as an example of the penetration of a legitimate business by organized crime. The company's plant in Auburn was acquired by Cooper Tire & Rubber Company. Auburn Rubber went out of business in 1969.

[edit] References

• Jonathan Kwitny, Vicious Circles: The Mafia in the Marketplace, New York: W.W. Norton, 1979, 422 pages. ISBN 0-39301-188-7
• Lee Sauer, When it wasn't cars, it was car parts
• Dave Leopard, Rubber toy vehicles - Identification and Value Guide, Collector Books, 2003, 144 colour pages. ISBN 1574323326 and ISBN 978-1574323320