page_title: Great Western Iron and Steel Company
section_title: Kirkland after Great Western Iron and Steel
hierarchical_section_title: Great Western Iron and Steel Company / Kirkland after Great Western Iron and Steel
caption_attribution_description: Street sign in the West of Market neighborhood of Kirkland, Washington, showing both the old names of streets in the original Kirkland plat and the current names.
context_page_description: The Great Western Iron and Steel Company was a company founded in the 1890s in Kirkland, Washington Territory by the city's namesake Peter Kirk to build an integrated smelter and steel mill to refine local ore into steel for rails and other purposes. If the enterprise had proceeded as Kirk and other investors envisioned, it would have held a "practical monopoly of the entire Pacific Coast" steel production. But instead, the company went bankrupt in the Panic of 1893, and the mostly-completed mill never produced any steel. A scholar in 1962 called it "the last major effort of private capital to erect an integrated iron and steel mill on the West Coast".
context_section_description: Kirk and the others who came to King County to create a steel mill are regarded as founders of the City of Kirkland. Although the steel mill no longer stands, the city retains historic homes and commercial buildings associated with it, including Peter Kirk's own 1891 brick office building, the Peter Kirk Building, the oldest commercial building on the Eastside of Lake Washington. The downtown area's 1888 street grid and house lots remain those planned for the company town by the founders, with 20–30-foot (6.1–9.1 m) plots on the 1880 plan of the Pullman District in Pullman, Illinois, the first planned industrial community in America. The city's downtown area bears dual-named street signs, with both the modern names and the original names referring to 19th century American presidents (e.g. Monroe) and English culture and steel industry (e.g. Piccadilly, Victoria and Sheffield).
caption: Kirkland street sign showing 19th century street names underneath modern names
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