The oldest timber-frame, red-brick building dates to 1888, when the
gabled, four-story factory was used by the Selle Gear Co. to make wagon
gears, suspensions and parts for horse-drawn carriages. The company grew and
evolved over the years, adding buildings and additions as times changed.
Akron Selle Co. got into metal stampings before World War I, and for a
time built truck bodies. During World War II, workers made military parts.
Akron Selle (pronounced ``Sell-e'') Co. produced parts for cars, trucks and
planes -- and even gasoline gauges for dirigibles.
The company moved to
Bartges Street in the mid-1990s, and the
Selle Street complex was put up for sale.
Akron Selle continued to make sheet metal stampings for the auto industry
until they closed their doors for good in 2001.
The Akron Selle Co. was bought in 1903 by Akron's Hower family, and
succeeding generations ran it for nearly a century before it closed in March
2001.
Akron Selle's last president, Otis A. Hower, 67, said the complex had
been listed by a real estate agent for about nine years, and ``an awful lot
of people went through it... but nobody seemed to come to the table.''
