Daniel O'Day was one of northwestern Pennsylvania's earliest independent refiners to be brought into John D. Rockefeller's Standard Oil Company. O'Day would eventually manage crews that laid pipe to bring oil from wells to the railroads. Despite attempts by many Standard Oil critics/enemies to sabotage the pipelines, O'Day's crews were skilled and efficient enough to lay pipe faster than it could be destroyed. This effectively ended the days of rolling wooden barrels of oil across the country to rail hubs, a service for which Standard might be hustled out of as much as 3 dollars at a time when the oil itself was worth $1.25.
O'Day also led installation of massive spans of pipeline that brought crude from the oil fields to refiners along the Eastern Seaboard, making it easier to refine crude for shipment to markets in Europe.
In 1901, he married future Democratic politician Caroline Love Goodwin O'Day in New York. They remained married until his death in 1916.
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