"Lel Bruce Peto" recommends the following reading for oil sector..

"Lel Bruce Peto" recommends the following reading for interest
in the oil sector:

By 1865 there were thirty refineries in the town, with a capital of about a 
million and a half dollars and a daily capacity of some 2,000 barrels. The 
works multiplied rapidly. The report Of the Cleveland Board of Trade for 
1866 gives the number of plants at the end of that year as fifty, and it 
dilates eloquently on the advantages of Cleveland as a refining point over 
even Pittsburg, to that time supposed to be the natural centre for the 
business. If the railroad and lake transportation men would but adopt as 
liberal a policy toward the oil freights of Cleveland as the Pennsylvania 
Railroad was adopting toward that of Pittsburg, aided by her natural 
advantages the town was bound to become the greatest oil refining centre in 
the United States. By 1868 the Board of Trade reported joyfully that 
Cleveland was receiving within 300,000 barrels as much oil as Pittsburg. In 
1869 she surpassed all competitors. "Cleveland now claims the leading 
position among the manufacturers of petroleum with a very reasonable 
prospect of holding that rank for some time to come," commented the Board 
of Trade report. "Each year has seen greater consolidation of capital, 
greater energy and success in prosecuting the business, and, 
notwithstanding some disastrous fires, a stronger determination to 
establish an immovable reputation for the quantity and quality of this most 
important product...

Received on Friday, 14 February 2003 17:46:10 UTC