Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1889-04-24
NAY AID PITTSBURG,
Possibly by the Erection of a White
Lead Manufacturing Plant.
WHATASTANDARD GOBBLE MEANS.
The Monopoly Regards This City as a Cheap
Producing Point.
A,PLANT WITH WONDERFUL PATENTS

1t was rumored yesterday that officials of
the Standard Oil Company, in addition to
having obtained control of the White Lead
Trust, had also about closed deal whereby
they secured control of the American Oxide
Company's plant at Franklin, Venango
county, Pa. Some of the stockholders in
this concern are Pittsburg gentlemen, al
though its President is S. r. Bradley. of
New York.
By reportorial inquiry THE DISPATCH
learned that while officials of the Standard
have no doubt secured the control of the
National White Lead Trust, they do not
yet own the American Oxide Company's
works. The Standard Oil Company has not
been doing the dickering. 1t has been done
by men who are connected with that great
corporation. For the past six weeks they
have been quietly purchasing the stock GER
tifcates of the trust, which are marketed in
the East, until now they can control ma
iority of it. The Standard is a great con-
sumer of white lead.
BOOM FOR THIS CITY.
Its officers, who are now at the head of
the trust, do not intend, it is said, to maDipu-
late prices at all. They rather expect to
make their money out of the dividends and
stock, and thus offset what their white lead
costs them.
In any event, the deal promises to be
boom to Pittsburg' prosperity. The Stand
ard people have stated openly recently that
the cheapest place in the United States to
make white lead and its other products is at
Pittsburg They intimated that If ever they
got the whiphand that this city should be
made the center of their industrial opera
tions.
These same Standard officials, it was
learned, are now keeping their eyes on the
stocks of the oxide works of Franklin. If
they should eventually capture it, it is
stated on excellent authority that they will
remove the whole plant from Franklin to
Pittsburg. By an improved process this
establishment oxidizes lead, zinc and other
metals of that kind speedier, more perfectly
and cheaper than by the present methods.
It is these new patents that make the
Franklin works valuable. When all its
furnaces are put in operation it will have
capacity of 80 or 60 tons.
PITTSBURG'S IMPORTANCE.
Pittsburg now ranks third in the United
States as a white lead center. st. Louis
and New York only are ahead of it. Every
wear Pittsburg produces from 15, 900 to 20,-
900 tons of white lead, the value of which is
about S130 a ton.- Some of the concerns in
this city make their own lead, going down
in the mine for the raw material in the first
place.
More than one-half of the corroders of
white lead in the United States are mem
bers of the National White Lead Trust. An
effort to ascertain just what firms in Pitts
burg belong failed utterly yesterday.
A member of one firm which does not be-
long to the trust, however, told the reporter
that he thought only two Pittsburg houses
were in the trust, and he added that there
are ten firms in the white lead business in
this city. He placed but little credence in
the rumors of the Standard deal, and said
that no matter what they did they could not
hurt white lead manufacturing in Pitts
burg.