Modern industrial heritage
This facility marks heritage from Japan’s industrial revolution in the Meiji period (1868-1912). It testifies to the achievement in the fields of ironmaking/steelmaking, shipbuilding, and coal mining in just a mere half-century from the middle of the 19th century. Among them is the Hashino Iron Mine remains now retaining a vast industrial space, such as a mining site, quarry, iron ore delivery route, blast furnace, waterway, other production-related facilities, and a daily payment office and mountain shrine.
The rapid industrial modernization led to the opening of the Kamaishi Railway in 1880, as the third in Japan, and Kamaishi Port’s development with the North Pier completed in 1881. The national government designated it as “Kamaishi’s Steelmaking-related Heritage,” one of the 33 modernized industrial heritage sites. Of these, the “Kamaishi Ironworks Yama Shrine Motto Frame,” cast from iron produced with coke in 1894, is an essential scientific and technological history material.
Authorities positioned Kamaishi as a vital intermediate supply point connecting Tokyo and Hakodate when they charted the first Japanese nautical map in 1872 ahead of government-owned steelworks construction.
For more, check out the brochure, “The Journey through Kamaishi Iron History.”