Harbel

Harbel is a town in Margibi County, Liberia, located along the Farmington River about 24 km (15 mi) from the Atlantic coast. The town was established in the 1920s following the development of the Firestone rubber concession and became the center of one of the world’s largest natural-rubber plantations. The name "Harbel" is a portmanteau formed from the names of Harvey S. Firestone and his wife Idabelle Firestone, reflecting their role in the early development of the settlement.

==History== ===Early development=== Harbel emerged after the 1926 concession agreement between the Government of Liberia and the Firestone Tire and Rubber Company, which granted Firestone rights to up to 1,000,000 acres of land under a 99-year lease. Under the terms of the agreement, Firestone paid an annual rental fee of six cents per acre, or approximately $60,000 per year for the full concession area. Historians have described this as an unusually low per-acre cost for a concession of such scale, reflecting Liberia’s fiscal distress in the 1920s and its efforts to attract foreign investment to stabilize the national economy.