406 FAMOUS LIVING AMERICANS alL Its products reached the uttermost parts of the earth and in the process of oil refining no by-product was lost. Prob- ably no other concern in the country surpassed it in the extent and excellence of its organization and the completeness of its scientific operation. With its various allied interests it was one of the most extensive and financially powerful industrial concerns in the world. Mr. Rockefeller retired from active direction of the Stand- ard Oil Company in 1894 at the age of 55 years. Since then he has given only casual attention to the i^airs of this com- pany and to his other large and varied interests, trusting their management almost wholly to his former tried and loyal asso- ciates. In more recent years, his son, John D. Rockefeller, Jr., has more and more assumed a general supervision of the Rockefeller interests. Much of the real estate in New York, Cleveland, and other cities has been transferred outright to the son. Mr. Rockefeller, Sr., has never been a great traveler. His unique prominence probably precluded this even had his inclination been in that direction. He has not been the liberal patron of the arts that some of his millionaire associates be- came, though in both his homes at Forest Hill, Cleveland, and Pocantico Hills, Tarrytown, are some rare and extremely valuable bric-a-brac, tapestries, statuary, and paintings. His one displayed passion has been for landscape gardening and road-building, the mastering and intensifying of natural beauty. The arrangement of the roadways at each of his estates was outlined by him. Miles and miles of beautifully built, winding, interlacing roads traverse the grounds. The shrubbery effects are artistic and beautiful, the tree groupings magnificent. Both houses have splendid outlooks, the one over Lake Erie, the other over the Hudson River. His chief exercise and amusement is golf and he has become a really eflScient wielder of the clubs. At one time Mr. Rockefeller promised to become one of the dominating influences in the iron trade. Among his many in- vestments were several in the rich Mesaba range of the Lake Superior ore district. When the panic of 1893 came along most of these ore mining companies found themselves in pre-
