The pioneering tire maker played a crucial role in making trucks a major means of U.S. freight transport.

Today we almost take it for granted that, "If you have it, a truck brought it." But in the early years of the 20th century, it wasn't clear that trucks would ever play a major role in moving freight. Thank Harvey Firestone for giving truck transport a big boost.

This year marks the 100th anniversary of The Firestone Tire & Rubber Co., and the tire giant is marking the occasion with a lavishly illustrated book chronicling its history. One chapter describes the founder's involvement in the "Better Roads" and "Ship by Truck" movements.

Around the time of World War I, railroads were the primary means for moving freight over any distance — and their owners wanted to keep it that way. They dismissed trucks as impractical except for short-haul deliveries.

But trucks had proved their worth in the war, delivering men, supplies and ammo to the fronts. After the war — and with tires to sell — Firestone and others involved in the truck industry launched the "Ship by Truck" campaign to sell trucks to farmers, manufacturers, shippers and consumers.

The campaign complemented — as well as aiding and being aided by — an earlier, ongoing "Better Roads" movement. The first federal interstate highways law came into being in 1916. As spiderwebs of paved roads inched across the land, the demand for trucks grew; as more trucks hit the road, the need for more improved roads grew.

Firestone was at the heart of both campaigns, and was something of a prophet. In a 1919 ad in the Saturday Evening Post, he wrote: "The truck is ready and able to shoulder burdens the railroads cannot carry and to leave them free for responsibilities too long deferred and delayed.

"It is a time for principals to confer — a time for them to cooperate. … Our future industrial growth depends largely upon the assistance rendered the railroads by trucks in speeding up freight movement. Communities which are not served by the railroads find in the truck the means for their rapid development."

Written more than 80 years ago, the words have a strangely modern ring, describing a debate that still goes on.