The years following the close of the Civil War saw in many lines a bitter struggle for business, which produced cutthroat competition and consequently a loss of profits. The natural result was combination. In 1879 the first trust, the Standard Oil Company, was organized under the guidance of John D. Rockefeller. The plan of organization provided that the owners of numerous small oil refineries located in Ohio, Pennsylvania, and New York should place their stocks in the hands of nine trustees in exchange for trust certificates. These trustees carried on all the business of the various interested refineries as if it were the business of one large concern. So successful was this plan that other groups of industries took it up, notably the manufactures of whiskey and of sugar. Between 1890 and 1892 several of the state courts declared such combinations to be illegal and ordered them to dissolve. This was the end of the trusts proper, though the term has continued down to the present time to designate concerns supposed to possess monopolistic advantages.