ws, Clark & Co. The firm also continued in the commission business but in 1865 the partners, disagreed about the management of their business affairs and decided to sell the refinery to whoever bid the highest. In 1870 he organized The Standard Oil Company along with his brother William, Andrews, Henry M. Flagler, S.V. Harkness, and others. It had a capital of $1 million. By 1872 Standard Oil had purchased and thus controlled nearly all the refining firms in Cleveland, plus two refineries in the New York City area. Before long the company was refining 29,000 barrels of crude oil a day and had its own cooper shop manufacturing wooden barrels. The company also had storage tanks with a capacity of several hundred thousand barrels of oil, warehouses for refined oil, and plants for the manufacture of paints and glue. Standard prospered and, in 1882, all its properties were merged in the Standard Oil Trust, which was in effect one great company. It had an initial capital of $70 million. There were originally forty-two certificate holders, or owners, in the trust. After ten years the trust was dissolved by a court decision in Ohio. The companies that had made up the trust later joined in the formation of the Standard Oil Company (New Jersey), since New Jersey had adopted a law that permitted a parent company to own the stock of other companies. It is estimated that Standard Oil owned three-fourths of the petroleum business in the U.S. in the 1890s. In addition to being the head of Standard, Rockefeller owned iron mines and timberland and invested in numerous companies in manufacturing, transportation, and other industries. Although he held the title of president of Standard Oil until 1911, Rockefeller retired from active leadership of the company in 1896. In 1911 the U.S. Supreme Court found the Standard Oil trust to be in violation of the anti-trust laws and ordered the dissolution of the parent New Jersey corporation. The thirty-eight compan...
