The Montgomery advertiser., 1908-11-19
ROCKEFELLER
 AS AiWITNESS
tconsinuea from Page 6he.)

RackefsIfsr. He looked to oh.S to eb- tain the crude oil and the refining plants of ahe company were at Cleve- land. Pit1sburK. Parkersburg. Baitt- more and New York. -..-.-.-
 "what were the refining points in the oil region7'
 .aTitusville was an important point and oil City, too, and there were oth. CT reflneries up and down oil Creek. "
 How did you get the crude otlf''
 well. we brought 1t over the river to CleveIand.'' "
 "What had been the course of the development of the Industry at that timer
 ~There had been rapid development In the cleansing ana refining of oil
 The business of reflning oil was profitable and as. a result, he said many refnerfes were built. ,t.
 Many people turned to this business of refining oil who were not necessari. ly the best trained business men" said Mr. Rockefeller. All sorts of refine- ries were built according to the means and capacity at the command of the builders"
 The standard Oil Company put up ali the rehneries possible but In general the buildings were pot up to the av- erage of those in Cleveland.
 ~Was Mr. Andrews & practical re- hnery'
 eThat was the reason he was given q part in the business" said Mr. Rocke- felier. ,-zts
 ~He was a practical refiner of oil and gave him an excellent opportunity, to Associate himself in the business in this
 Now tell us of the advantages and disadvantages of Cleveland as a refin- ing point" said Mir Milburn.
 Advantage of Cleveland.
 T should say that Cleveland was the best distributing point to obtain the domestic trade" replied MT. Rockefei- Ter. T suppose it had natural advant- ages. We always had the trade that we could supply by the lakes. Many railroads led Into the west and to the eastward. we had the Lake Shore, Att lantic and Great Western. the New York Central the ErAe and at times we avai1ed ourselves of the Pennsylvania Railroad. We generally, though. avail cd ourselves of the Northern lines, such as the Lake Shore. New York Cen. tra1 and Atlantic and Great Western We also had c water route to New York by Lake Erie. the Erie Canal and the Hudson River. This was an ad-. vantage. as we had the capital to take this slower route of transportation, me disadvantage of Cleveland was. that we had a long haul to the sea- board for the export trade, We also had to haul the crude oil to Cleveland. :.
 ''What was the comparative size of gour refinery to others at this time. in fs70?"
 .'sT believe t was the largest in the country at that time" -
 "The company was capitalized at s1.000.00Q: was that considered a large capita1ization?" asked Mir. MiIburn.
 Mfp DArIrafallAr atTt was considered very large. We thought 1t very large, as we started in 1860 with S4,000."
 Were many Improvements noted in the business?"
 Yes. many Improvements were made" said MT. Rockefeller. We bought improved machinery and made our own barrels. We bought the bar rels which held about forty-four gall Ions. from the ceopers and we thought we were paying 8 high price at about S2,50 apiece, Some Of these barrels were made of green wood. and often the tnsides were damp. This caused shrinkage after tine barrels were filled. We then bought the: wood ourselves and dried 1t in our own kilns in. the eJfest. Thus. we had dry wood.
 -'We made our own barrels, which not only were satisfactory because they reduced leakage. but they were inc creased in size. increasing the capacity by nearly five gallons. These barrels cost us. when we made them. about half of the price. s2.5o, which we for merly paid for them.''
 Mir RockefeIler said the savings on the barrels represented a large saving to the company and represented one of the innovations developed by the company.
 '"The things that we used from time to time we were enabled to produce at prices lower than that which we pre- viousIy paid. as our capital increased" said Mfr. Rockefeller.
 Established in New York. Let me ask you about the house which you established here" said MT. 
 s'Yes. that was an advantage It gave us an opportunity to learn of the foreign markets and export trade. We were constantly in need of increasing capital as our business developed and in New York we were enabled to secure larger sums of money at lower rates than in the Vest We were always able to obtain large sums of money and I am thankful to say, we always had good credit. We always kept our covenants and paid our bills.
 Our ability to secure large loans was of great advantage to us. Thus