Even more dramatic was its success in gathering up, one after another, these pipe lines which represented the circulatory system of the oil industry.

In the early days these pipe lines were small and comparatively simple affairs.
They merely carried the crude oil from the wells to railroad centers; from these stations the railroads transported it to the refineries at Cleveland, New York, and other places.

At an early day the construction and management of these pipe lines became a separate industry.

And now, in 1873, the Standard Oil Company secured possession of a one-third interest in the largest of these privately owned companies, the American Transfer Company.

Soon afterward the United Pipe Line Company went under their control.