Randy Boyd, Commissioner of the Tennessee Department of Economic and Community Development, will be in Rutherford County on Friday (10/7/16). The state commissioner will be visiting Bridgestone in LaVergne for Manufacturing Week.

The LaVergne plant was first opened in 1972 on a 132-acre plot of farmland. However, it was opened under the Firestone Tire and Rubber Company, which was not tied to Bridgestone until 1988.

The LaVergne plant is a historic location for Bridgestone as it was actually the first Bridgestone plant in the United States to make tires. Prior to that date, the company manufactured tires outside of the U.S. since 1931 in Japan. But, it was not until 1981 that Bridgestone actually purchased the plant from Firestone and started the manufacturing of truck and bus tires in 1983.

Looking back to the start of Bridgestone, it was a company started by Japanese native Shojiro Ishibashi in 1906. The company started with the manufacturing of rubber shoe soles. In 1930, the Japanese company started manufacturing tires in Japan.

Yeats later in 1988, Bridgestone merged with the Firestone Tire and Rubber Company. Keep in mind that Harvey Firestone founded Firestone Tire and Rubber Company in Akron, Ohio in 1900. In 1903, Firestone began producing tires and years later, opened a plant in LaVergne (1972).

Today, over 50-acres of the land are part of their fully enclosed manufacturing facility.