This day in 1892 ... US pneumatic tyre patent with bead wires

Syracuse, New York -- On 20 December, 1892 Alexander Brown and George Stillman filed patent no 488494 for a pneumatic car tyre that could easily be mounted and de-mounted onto a wheel. The patent noted that the wheel had an exterior grooved rim with flanges to retain the tyre and a tyre containing bead wires. This combination of flanged wheel and stiff bead wires removed the necessity of having the tyre fixed to the rim, and the idea has remained almost unchanged in over 100 years.