Gates continued to have hopes of being able to take on J. P. Morgan again-this time with a rival steel trust. After the sale of his Louisville and Nashville Railroad stocks to Morgan in 1902, Gates quietly began buying shares of Colorado Fuel and Iron Company. He and his associates easily owned more than 50 percent of the company's stock shares, but the company's owner and founder, John C. Osgood, claimed the shares were not valid. Osgood said that while the company was listed on the New York Stock Exchange, any transfer of the shares without his signature and approval, made them invalid. He went on to say that because of their invalidity, those who held shares of the company's stock without them, were not eligible to attend the annual stockholders' meeting. Osgood was upheld in this opinion by the company's board of directors.