Frank Henry Goodyear, Jr. (1891-1930)

Frank H. Goodyear, Jr., of Buffalo & East Aurora, New York

Associated Houses

Frank H. Goodyear House

Buffalo

He was born in Buffalo, New York. He graduated from the Pawling School and attended - but did not graduate from - Yale with the class of 1916. In 1917, he enlisted with in the aviation service and was being trained at Penascola, Florida, when peace was declared. Returning to Buffalo, he co-founded an agency for Goodyear tires (no relation) and Ward La France trucks. In 1921, he co-founded the Goodyear-Wende Oil Company that owned service stations with the exclusive rights to sell Texaco products in Western New York. He was also Vice-President of the Great Southern Lumber Company; Vice-President of the New Orleans Great Northern Railway; and, a director of the Gulf Mobile & Northern Railroad; Marine Trust; and, of the Bogalusa Paper Company.

He initially lived between the two home she inherited from his mother: 762 Delaware Avenue in Buffalo and the Goodyear Cottage on Jekyll Island. After he was married he built the Know Farm House at East Aurora that they sold to his brother-in-law before building another larger house nearby, "Crag Burn" on 222-acres. He owned several yachts, all named Poule d'Eau, the last of which was 122-feet with 300-horsepower diesel engines but blew up off Jekyll Island in 1929 killing the engineer and just hours after Frank and his guests had reached land. He was a keen sportsman (notably polo, squash and bridge) and belonged to a number of clubs in New York. On October 23, 1915, he married Dorothy Virginia Knox, daughter of Seymour Knox I. They were the parents of four children and after his death in a car accident in 1930 his widow remarried Edmund Pendleton Rogers.
Contributed by Mark Meredith on 27/06/2022 and last updated on 08/07/2022.