By the opening of the 1870's, it appeared that the major technical bot-
tlenecks in petroleum transportation had been broken. A 2,000-mile web
of gathering lines enabled any producer to run his crude from wells to
railhead and river banks at one-tenth the rates formerly charged by team-
ster. For longer hauls the three oil-carrying railroad trunk lines had more
or less adequately linked the fields and refining points, while a general
adoption of the cylinder-type metal tank car increased savings in the
transit of crude to refineries. While these advances had led to sharp reduc-
tions over the preceding decade, transportation costs at the beginning
of 1874 were still among the industry's largest expense items. Time had
not erased the rate differentials among various refining centers, nor
brought an end to personal discrimination.

It was from attempts to overcome these differentials that the founda-

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