The History of the Standard Oil Company Vol 1 - Joseph D

The Empire Transportation Company was a multimodal freight transportation company founded and operated by Joseph D. Potts in 1865. It owned a small fleet of boats on the

Great Lakes The Great Lakes, also called the Great Lakes of North America, are a series of large interconnected freshwater lakes spanning the Canada–United States border. The five lakes are Lake Superior, Superior, Lake Michigan, Michigan, Lake Huron, H ...

which collected grain and produce which were then delivered to

Erie, Pennsylvania Erie is a city on the south shore of Lake Erie and the county seat of Erie County, Pennsylvania, United States. It is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania, fifth-most populous city in Pennsylvania and the most populous in Northwestern Pen ...

. It owned 5,000

railroad cars A railroad car, railcar ( American and Canadian English), railway wagon, railway carriage, railway truck, railwagon, railcarriage or railtruck (British English and UIC), also called a train car, train wagon, train carriage or train truc ...

, 1,500 of which were tank cars devoted to carrying oil. It also owned 520 miles of

oil pipelines A pipeline is a system of pipes for long-distance transportation of a liquid or gas, typically to a market area for consumption. The latest data from 2014 gives a total of slightly less than of pipeline in 120 countries around the world. The Un ...

. By the mid-1870s, it hauled about 3,000,000 barrels of oil annually, of which about two-thirds came from independent oil refiners. The company was a subsidiary of the

Pennsylvania Railroad The Pennsylvania Railroad ( reporting mark PRR), legal name as the Pennsylvania Railroad Company, also known as the "Pennsy," was an American Class I railroad that was established in 1846 and headquartered in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. At its ...

and it was very profitable. In 1876 the company paid a 10 percent dividend ($400,000) on stock worth $4,000,000.

Venture into oil refining and sale to the combine

Many of Potts' oil tanker customers were independent refiners, and he became worried that his business would become subservient to

Standard Oil Standard Oil Company was a Trust (business), corporate trust in the petroleum industry that existed from 1882 to 1911. The origins of the trust lay in the operations of the Standard Oil of Ohio, Standard Oil Company (Ohio), which had been founde ...

. In 1877, Potts bought an oil refinery on

Long Island Long Island is a densely populated continental island in southeastern New York (state), New York state, extending into the Atlantic Ocean. It constitutes a significant share of the New York metropolitan area in both population and land are ...

and began to build one in

Philadelphia Philadelphia ( ), colloquially referred to as Philly, is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania, most populous city in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania and the List of United States cities by population, sixth-most populous city in the Unit ...

John D. Rockefeller John Davison Rockefeller Sr. (July 8, 1839 – May 23, 1937) was an American businessman and philanthropist. He was one of the List of richest Americans in history, wealthiest Americans of all time and one of the richest people in modern hist ...

of Standard Oil visited with

Thomas A. Scott Thomas Alexander Scott (December 28, 1823 – May 21, 1881) was an American businessman, railroad executive, and industrialist. In 1861, President Abraham Lincoln appointed him to serve as U.S. Assistant Secretary of War, and during the American ...

, the president of the Pennsylvania Railroad to object having a competitor in the refining business, even though Scott knew that Standard Oil owned at least twice as many tank cars that the Empire Transportation Company owned. Following this meeting, Standard Oil shut down its

Pittsburgh Pittsburgh ( ) is a city in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, United States, and its county seat. It is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania#Municipalities, second-most populous city in Pennsylvania (after Philadelphia) and the List of Un ...

refineries in March 1877, depriving the Pennsylvania Railroad of 65 percent of its oil traffic. A

strike Strike may refer to: People *Strike (surname) * Hobart Huson, author of several drug related books Physical confrontation or removal *Strike (attack), attack with an inanimate object or a part of the human body intended to cause harm * Airstrike, ...

in July 1877 destroyed millions of dollars of Pennsylvania Railroad property. In discussions that largely excluded Potts, A.J. Cassatt of the Pennsylvania Railroad and Standard Oil agreed to a sale price of $3,500,000 in October 1877.

References

Bibliography

* {{PRR Transportation companies based in Pennsylvania Lists of transport companies 1877 disestablishments in Pennsylvania 1865 establishments in Pennsylvania American companies established in 1865 Transport companies disestablished in 1877 Defunct shipping companies of the United States Standard Oil Pennsylvania Railroad Defunct companies based in Pennsylvania Defunct oil companies of the United States Crude oil pipelines companies American companies disestablished in 1877