Follow up to the tire recap post... one guy in Florida realized that he had a LOT of scrap rubber, in the middle of a WW2 rubber scarcity, and was GENIUS in his methods of making money from rubber - you're going to love this, and join me in thanking Steve B who finds or KNOWS stuff and shares it with us

William Howard Frankland grew up working for his dad in the family horse carriage business, both as carpenter and machinist. His first job at age 8 was pinstriping the horse buggies

After Howard graduated from high school he was sent by his father to study the tire business at the B. F. Goodrich Company in Akron, Ohio.

Frankland came to Tampa in 1925, during the real estate boom, but there were no get-rich-quick schemes for him, he conservatively bought a filling station instead. People would always have to buy gasoline and tires. 

He also built a block-long filling station and automobile accessory store on one of Tampa's main thoroughfares, operating both stores with the main office downtown. 

On its roof he built a tower, then unheard of, but which has since become a symbol for filling stations. He lighted up the front like a Hollywood premiere. 

With the automobile industry taking off, he was doing incredible business, a million dollars a year. 

Then he got into fixing tires, and inventing improved tools... then he came up with a way to recycle rubber.

Then things really took off, he recycled rubber scraps into rubber balls, made a factory, patented stuff, and sold the business to AMF Voit.

Rubber was extremely scarce at the time, and recapping tires was the business to be in, and being very wealthy, he joined the city fathers because Tampa Florida at the time needed some leadership and he jumped into road and bridges too, and getting the McDill Air Force Base set up to bring long term military pay into the area.

During the depression which followed the crash, sending the country's financial structure into an upheaval, Howard studied. He learned everything there was to know about rubber. 

 Howard went to the country's tire manufacturers to learn more about rubber. He was particularly interested in the process of reclaiming rubber. Before the depression was over, General Tires hired him to design and build a pilot plant in Tampa.

Meanwhile, on a trip to Cuba, Howard noticed that the country was hit even harder than the United States in the availability of tires. 

 So he opened a branch business in Havana--the Servicio de Gomas Pioneer, S.A. 

 But Cuban bus operators, truck fleet owners and motorists were skeptical and didn't buy. So Frankland bought their old worn out tires, recapped them, and rented them back to the original owners at a cost per kilometer. The Cubans had nothing to lose, so they rented shiny, newly retreaded tires from Señor Frankland

Up until the revolution, Frankland was also the Lincoln-Mercury dealer for the island of Cuba.

The Frankland's new rubber reclaiming process became a stepping stone to a patent and another unique business opportunity. In 1957, Rubber Products, Inc. began to produce personalized rubber mats.

In 1958 the newest product, a unique type of color-flecked floor tile called Tuflex. "Don't worry, it's Tuflex" became the headline in ads placed in sports magazines across the country. This new rubber floor became an instant hit, with brisk sales in country clubs, ice rinks and gyms. The revolutionary flooring bounced back from golf spike traffic while protecting the cleats from wear. Sales quickly expanded with new uses.

Tuflex is one of the most popular floors in athletic facilities in the nation. It's the sports floor for many football, basketball, hockey, and baseball teams including dozens of professional franchises in the NFL, NHL, NBA, MBA and WNBA.

You can read a LOT more about it, until you fall asleep with boredom, as someone went nuts on this guy's bio and businesses, encylopedic in fact, as he also got so rich he was running banks. https://www.tampapix.com/frankland.htm