The effect of the discriminations practiced against independent refineries soon became apparent. In less than two years there were closed in Pittsburgh twenty-one refineries, that represented an aggregate capital of $2,000,000 and had given employment to over 3,000 people. A large number of the remaining refineries were forced to consolidate with the Standard Oil Company. The next step toward the entire suppression of competition was an attack planned against the independent pipe lines. The Standard had early secured control of the United Pipe Line. To exterminate competing lines, they again appealed to the railroad companies, and on the 9th day of September, 1874, J. H. Rutter, general freight agent of the New York Central, issued a new oil tariff which discriminated greatly in favor of the oil brought by the United Pipe Line to the refineries. Up to that time this company had done from 25 to 30 per cent. of the total business of the various pipe lines. Within one year after the adoption of the new tariff it did fully 80 per cent. of the entire business. This forced the independent lines either to sell out to the Standard or to suspend business, for the latter's rebate was larger than their toll. The oil tariff of the Pennsylvania Central compelled the independent Pittsburgh refiners to ship their refined oil over that company's line, if they would avail themselves of the rebate which it granted on the rates for the transportation of crude oil to Pittsburgh. The evident purpose and the effect of such a tariff was to prohibit oil shipments over the Baltimore and Ohio. Had this road made ever so reasonable a tariff, the combined charges for the transportation of the crude petroleum from the oil regions to Pittsburgh by the Pennsylvania Central, and for that of the refined oil to the sea coast by the Baltimore and Ohio, would still have been prohibitive in competition with the special transit rates granted to the Standard Oil Company. As a remedy it was proposed to organize a new pipe line, it being believed that the crude oil could be brought to Pittsburgh by that line, refined there, shipped to the seaboard by the Baltimore and Ohio, and sold there at as good or even a better profit than the product of the Standard, notwithstanding the favors received by the latter from the allied trunk lines. This movement resulted in the creation of the Columbia Conduit Company, which at once proceeded to lay its pipes from the oil wells to Pittsburgh. Under the laws of the State of Pennsylvania it became necessary for this company to obtain the permission of property-holders to lay the pipes through their lands. Consent was everywhere readily given, and the pipes were laid without hindrance until the track of the Pennsylvania Railroad was reached, within a few miles of the Pittsburgh refineries. This company peremptorily refused to let the pipes be laid under its track. The pipe line company after some delay contrived a way to obviate the difficulty.