William Wallace Cargill

Grain storage, Midwest. Cargill, the son of a Scottish sea captain, bought a grain warehouse at a railway terminus in Conover, Iowa, in 1865 and built a chain of elevators along the expanding railways, buying grain from farmers and storing it until it could be shipped. Control of storage along the route was the business. Cargill grew into one of the world's largest private companies, still family-owned, with a long record of criticism over its market power.