Forty-one investors sign; nine trustees now hold the American oil business

By 1879, John D. Rockefeller's Standard Oil already controlled more than 90 percent of America's oil refining market, but state laws capped how big any single company could grow. On January 2, 1882, forty-one investors signed the Standard Oil Trust Agreement, pooling securities from forty separate companies into one holding structure managed by nine trustees and valued at $70 million. The arrangement let Rockefeller run a nationwide operation without technically owning one company across state lines. The Supreme Court finally ordered it broken up in 1911…