1957

Don Holschwander started with a little 24-hour gas station in Bethlehem at the corner of Broadway and Emmaus Avenue. He then added another station at the corner of the Cedar Crest Shopping Center in Allentown. Soon Don got into the tire business by adding a warehouse in Emmaus on Lehigh Street; carrying the Brigadier Tire line. Later he consolidated his efforts, sold the gas stations and acquired a larger warehouse and service station on Main Street in Hellertown.

1960

Don took on Jetzon Tire - a local family owned private label tire line - and expanded his distribution into northeastern Pennsylvania and western New Jersey. By the late 1960's he started Galaxie Tire, which catered to cash-and-carry members only. His stores grew to cover Allentown, Reading, Harrisburg, Williamsport, and Wilkes-Barre, PA.

1974

Derby Tire was opened in Bath, PA; an experimental segmented bead-to-bead retread shop.

1977

Derby Tire's production grew and the manufacturing was moved to Race Street in Catasauqua, PA.

1980

Tom Holschwander "The Boss", Don's younger brother, took over the reigns of the retread shop in Catasauqua and started opening to the public with retail sales and service under the name American Tire Factory.

1991

We built our current warehouse and service facility at the corner of Eberhart Road and 7th Street in Whitehall, PA. The original layout of the building had four service bays on one side and our tire warehouse on the other. The showroom, waiting area, and offices are centered between the two sides.

1997

We added a 14,000 square foot warehouse to our current building and converted the old warehouse space to have five more service bays; bringing our total to nine. Our new 3-level warehouse is capable of holding more than 8,000 tires.

2003

We broke ground for another 6,000 square foot warehouse with a retail rental unit on the same property. This brought our total square footage to over 32,000.

In October we signed on to be a T3 Certified Tire Center. With this deal we became a retailer of Michelin, BFGoodrich and Uniroyal. Also included with the deal was our new showroom display and counter front.

2004

Our new warehouse is completed -- reaching our maximum capacity at this location. In March/April we added the fast growing Hankook Tire brand to our lineup, which now includes Jetzon, Hankook, Michelin, BFGoodrich and Uniroyal.

2005

2005 marked the 25th anniversary of American Tire Factory. The business has come a long way from its start on Race Street in Catasauqua in 1980. We would like to thank you, our customer, for helping us be where we are today.

2007

Fifty years have passed since Don opened his first gas station in Bethlehem, PA. Unfortunately, 2007 was not a year of celebration. In mid April a vehicle parked inside caught fire and damaged more than half our building and three of our delivery vans. It took until December for the damaged areas to be rebuilt and for us to be fully operational again.

2009

In 2009 we put our Tire Taxi™ on the road. Our goal is to get quick tire delivery to our most immediate wholesale customers. Our slogan for delivery has always been "Fast, Free, Friendly Delivery", but now it's even faster.

Another improvement that we implemented this year was our online wholesale inventory and ordering website, which can be found at www.atfwholesale.com. Wholesale customers can check stock, prices, tire information and photos, and order tires online.