Northern Securities Company was a large railroad conglomerate formed in the late 1800s by financiers J.P. Morgan, Jim Hill, J. D. Rockefeller, E. H. Harrimanand others. The company controlled the Northern Pacific Railway, the Union Pacific, the Burlington line, and others. The company is perhaps best known as one of the first large-scale examples of President Theodore Roosevelt's "trust-busting" activities in the early 1900s. After vigorous federal prosecution, the company was dissolved according to the 1904 Supreme Court ruling in the Northern Securities case. The Northern Securities case was one of the earliest and most important antitrust cases, and provided important legal precedents for many later cases, including that against Major League Baseball.
