James Park was born on January 11, 1820 in Pittsburgh, Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, United States. He had a Scotch-Irish parentage. His father, James Park, was a native of Ireland who probably emigrated to the United States in 1812, and his mother, Margaret (McCurdy), was the daughter of a Scotch-Irish physician resident in Pittsburgh at the time of her marriage.
James Park's early education was obtained in the Pittsburgh elementary schools.
At seventeen, James Park began his business career in his father's china and metal store, rising to partnership in 1840 with a younger brother, David E. Park. The firm, which later achieved national prominence as Park, Brother & Company, became James Park, Jr. & Company on the father's death in 1843, and gradually expanded its personnel and interests under the leadership of the elder brother. John McCurdy and James B. Scott were at different times members of the firm, an interest was acquired in a cotton-goods factory in Allegheny, Pennsylvania, and the Lake Superior Copper Works were founded in 1857 for the manufacture of sheathing copper from Lake Superior ore. Park retained partial control of these and other varied enterprises throughout his life, but it was not until shortly before the Civil War that he entered upon the most significant activity of his career. At that time he became interested in the iron industry and from 1860 to 1883 he had a prominent part in its development. To this he contributed along two distinct lines: he encouraged the introduction of new industrial processes, although not of an inventive type of mind himself; and he was instrumental in increasing the tariff schedules which entrenched steel in its position of special privilege.
The first real impetus to steel-making was due to a political maneuver, for the framers of the Morrill tariff act of 1861, in the hope of making Pennsylvania safe for the Republican party, increased the duties on iron and steel. Before 1860 many attempts had been made on a small scale at Pittsburgh to produce crucible cast steel, but the first to be commercially practicable was that of Hussey, Wells & Company in 1860. Park's firm followed this in 1862 with the establishment of the Black Diamond Steel Works. After preliminary failures, this plant achieved a product of high quality with American iron, and was said in 1883 to have a greater capacity for crucible steel than any other plant in the world.
Park was also connected with the development in the United States of the "pneumatic" process of steel making. Although permanently linked with the name of Sir Henry Bessemer, priority of invention of this process has now been generally conceded to William Kelly E. B. Ward of Detroit and Z. S. Durfee of New Bedford, Massachussets, bought control of Kelly's process after experiments had convinced them of its practicability, and in May 1863 they, together with Daniel J. Morrell of Johnstown, Pennsylvania, William M. Lyon of Detroit, and James Park, Jr. , incorporated the Kelly Pneumatic Process Company. Experimental works were established at Wyandotte, Michigan, and there, in the autumn of 1864, the first steel made in the United States by the complete Bessemer process was blown. Park's connection with this enterprise (finally abandoned in 1869) ceased with its purchase by E. B. Ward in 1865.
Park was the first to introduce into the United States the Siemens gas furnace for metal conversion. Invented and patented in England by Charles William Siemens and his brother Frederick, this type of furnace became a vital part of the Siemens-Martin open-hearth steel process. The first Siemens furnace, completed by Park, McCurdy & Company at their copper works on August 14, 1863, was operated successfully. A second one, built later in the same year to heat steel, was not a success. Both these furnaces were constructed from published drawings, and without securing a license from the Siemens brothers. The first licensed introduction of the regenerative gas furnace was not until 1867, at Troy, New York. Another experiment was undertaken in 1877 by Park, Brother & Company when, in conjunction with Miller, Metcalf & Parkin, they tried out a process invented by C. W. Siemens for making refined iron directly from the ore. The results were not encouraging, and the attempt was abandoned in 1879.
On September 1882 Park, a vice-president of the American Iron and Steel Association from 1873 to 1883, presided over a convention of the trade, and was authorized to lay its views before the tariff commission created that year with a view to tariff reduction. He testified effectively in defence of the policy which had made his fortune, and after the hearings were over spent much time in Washington lobbying for the tariff bill. He is said to have had great influence in securing the final result as embodied in the bill approved March 3, 1883. It was a cleverly contrived victory for the protectionists, increases in steel duties being concealed under ostensible changes in classification. It is possible that Park's tariff activities in 1882 and the early months of 1883 hastened his death, which occurred at his home on April 21, 1883 in Allegheny, Pennsylvania, following an apoplectic stroke. Mr. Park leaves a large estate, estimated at from two to five million dollars.
James Park's wife was Sarah (Gray) Park. They had five sons and two daughters.
