Peter Kirk's integrated iron and steel works in Workington, England was a leader in Britain's iron industry until that country's market share yielded to America's burgeoning steel industry. In 1886, Kirk sailed to North America on a mission to remedy the impact on his ironworks. His luggage contained top hat, coat tails and gold coin. He tucked in his Derbyshire family's century-old expertise in iron production that rode the wave of the Industrial Revolution, which he built on with his ingenuity and inventions. He filled another chest with quiet audacity and steadfast perseverance. However, he also carried the baggage of family rivalries and the propensity for those named "Peter" to leave the family business. In his pocket, Peter Kirk carried a dream.
Once in America, he found the immigrant laws were stacked against "his kind" and so enlisted the aid of someone who quite possibly was a scoundrel. Even that was not enough to battle the boardroom politics of railroad competitions, demanding mining companies, frontier town rivalries, unexpected disasters, and America's greatest recession. Even so, he paid the woodcutters to carve out an outpost for his new steelworks from the dense and wild forests of Washington Territory. Alas, the dream failed, his money--lost, his expertise questioned, and his audacity tested. His perseverance and foresight, however, won Peter Kirk a new dream in his namesake town of Kirkland, Washington.
