AKRON, Ohio, city and county-seat of Summit County, situated in a range of hills overlooking the Big and Little Cuyahoga Rivers, 35 miles southeast of Cleveland and 130 miles northeast of Columbus. Akron is entered by the Baltimore & Ohio, Pennsylvania, Erie, Akron, Canton & Youngstown, and Northern Ohio railroads. The town was settled about 1818 but its growth dates from the construction of the Ohio Canal in 1825, here mounting to the watershed between Lake Erie and the Ohio River by a series of 21 locks, the surplus water used in lockage furnished by a system of reser voirs on the Summit level supplying the power for large flouring mills then located here. Akron was incorporated as a village in 1836 and as a city in 1865. Situated in a location advantageous for diversified industries at the northern edge of the grain belt and on the southern border of .the dairy section of the State, with beds of fireclay and coal fields close by, Akron has developed the largest cereal pulls in the country, the most extensive clay-product plants, has taken the lead in books, fishing-tackle, matches and agricultural implements, and is the largest rubber-manu facturing centre in the world. Besides im mense quantities of rubber clothing, hose, surgical and other goods, 20 companies have a daily capacity of 40,000 automobile tires and an increasing output of aviation and aeronautical material. The aggregate capitalization of its 164 industries is $175,000,000; combined value of annual sales (1915) $156,177,993. Akron is governed by a mayor, council, board of public service, board of public safety, board of edu cation and subordinate officers. The school
system alone involves the annual expenditure of $350,000 in salaries, and is of a high and efficient grade. The University of Akron, a free city institution, dates from 1913 and was previously known as Buchtel College (Univer salist) (q.v.), founded by John R. Buchtel, the cornerstone of which was laid by Horace Greeley in 1872. Akron has fine public insti tutions and residential buildings, large depart ment stores, a completely motorized fire de partment, a municipal water system completed (1915) at a cost of $4,580,000; a municipal gar bage and sewage plant which cost $550,000, 17 parks covering 219 acres, four public play grounds, and a *white way* system of lighting three miles long. It is the centre of a lake dis trict famous for its scenic attractions, including Portage Path, an Indian trail between the Cuyahoga and Tuscarawas rivers, which formed part of the western boundary of the United States in 1785. Akron was once the home of John Brown, where the councils of his associates in the abolition cause were held. It was also the residence of Sidney Edgerton, first chief justice of Idaho Territory and first territorial governor of Montana. Pop. (1915) 100,079, an increase of 45 per cent in five years from (1910) 69,067. Pop. of Greater Akron, including suburbs (1916), 120,000. Consult Lane, S. A., 'Fifty Years and Over of Akron and Summit County' (Akron 1892) ; 'Akron —The City of Opportunity' (Akron Chamber of Commerce 1916).