Beppu Station Area about 60 years ago and today

History of Beppu Station Area

At the foot of the slope descending from the western mountains to Beppu Bay, the area around Beppu Station opens out as the center of the hot spring town. The station is about halfway down the slope, and walking east for a few hundred meters brings you to Kitahama on the coast. The aerial photographs show the tracks running north-south through the center of the frame, the street heading straight east from the station to the sea, and a shoreline that changes shape from era to era. About the eastern third of the frame is sea; in the 1961-69 photograph the area further offshore is missing in gray, and in the 1974-78 photograph too the right edge is missing in black. This is because the coverage of the photographs ends there, not because there was anything on the sea. Since the ground descends from west to east, the left side toward the mountains and the right side toward the sea differ considerably in height within the same frame.

A spa resort opened by ships

The hot springs of Beppu had long been known, but it was the sea that set the shape of the town. The historical materials compiled by the City of Beppu record that many spa visitors from other provinces came to Beppu Village and Hamawaki Village, which were close to the coast and easy for ships to call at. In 1871 (Meiji 4) the port of Beppu was built and ship services to the Kansai region began, and in 1911 (Meiji 44) the railway's Kamegawa, Beppu and Hamawaki stations opened. It became a town that received both visitors arriving by sea and visitors arriving by land, and the town extended north from Hamawaki. Beppu became a city in 1924 (Taisho 13). After the war, in 1950, the Beppu International Tourist Hot Spring Culture City Construction Act was promulgated, and city building centered on hot springs and tourism gained the backing of law.

The grid-like streets between the station and the coast are the town that spread in this way, filling the space between the port and the station. The street extending east from the station crosses the center of the frame in every era of the photographs as the road connecting the coast where ships arrive with the railway station.

The station and the bowed shore

The 1961-69 photograph is black and white, and fine roofs are packed all over from the center of the frame to the lower half. The tracks run almost north-south from the top edge of the frame to the bottom edge and change direction gently around the center. Before and after the station the tracks widen and split into many lines, and just to the west a white, bright surface like a plaza juts out diagonally. From the east side of the station, a street running straight to the coast passes through as a line brighter than the surrounding roofs.

The coast where the street ends continues north and south in a gentle bow. Right of the center, a long, narrow landing pier juts offshore, and a cluster of buildings huddles at its base. A little to the south there is a small harbor enclosed by a curved breakwater, with dots that look like small boats lined up inside. The upper half of the frame looks different, and rectangles of fields still remain on the east side of the tracks. The northern coast still shines white as a sandy beach, and no straight lines that look like artificial seawalls can be found.

On the left side of the frame, in a corner a little way up the slope, long, narrow buildings of the same shape line up neatly with dark pine woods behind them. A wide surface with an outline close to a pentagon, shaped like a baseball field, lies below them. The lower left corner is darkly covered by mountain woods, and a river course runs diagonally from the foot of the mountains toward the sea. In the upper left, a large oval track and a white rectangular plaza can be seen.

Until the camp became a park again

The rows of buildings on the left were facilities on the grounds of Beppu Park. According to the City of Beppu's park chronology, this area began in 1907 (Meiji 40), when the city bought the land in time for a visit by the Crown Prince and laid it out as a place of recreation. In 1946 (Showa 21) US forces were stationed there, and even after it was returned to Japan in 1957 (Showa 32), it continued to be used as the Self-Defense Forces' Camp Beppu. The neatly lined buildings in the 1961-69 photograph are the camp in that era.

If you switch to the 1974-78 photograph, the rows of buildings on the left remain in almost the same arrangement, and the surface shaped like a baseball field looks pale reddish brown. In 1977 (Showa 52) it was designated a memorial park and was laid out again as Beppu Park. The rows of buildings eventually disappeared. In today's photograph the same place is covered by wide woods, with several buildings with large roofs along their edge. The chronology continues that B-Con Plaza was completed in 1995, Beppu Stadium was demolished in 2001, and the general gymnasium Beppu Arena was completed in 2003. Some of the pines planted around the time of the Meiji-era layout are said to be still alive at more than 100 years old. From rows of buildings to pine woods, the same land changed its use twice in about half a century.

The people's station and the coastal seawall

The station itself also changed form in the 1960s. According to materials of the JR Kyushu Group, Beppu Station was elevated in 1966 as a "people's station" (minshu eki), and commercial facilities were laid out under the elevated tracks for about 1 km. In the 1974-78 photograph, the tracks that had split into many lines before and after the station have come together into a single thin band, and the streets press directly against both sides of it.

The coast also changes greatly. In the 1974-78 photograph, at the position of the landing pier right of the center, a long, straight seawall parallel to the shoreline has been drawn, and a long, narrow strip of land has formed inside it. A straight edge and a small harbor also appear on the northern coast, and the sandy beach that shone white shrinks to a thin band. The fields in the upper half of the frame have almost all been replaced by houses.

In the lower half of the frame, the river course running from the foot of the mountains to the sea and the tracks heading south along the sea pass through the same positions in every era. The mountain woods in the lower left also hardly change their outline, and the filling in of rows of houses is limited to the slope between the foot of the mountains and the coast.

Buildings with large roofs surround the station, and tall buildings stand along the street to the east and on the coastal land; that is the scene in today's photograph. The street extending east from the station still keeps its width and reaches the coast. Outside the straight seawall many small landing piers jut out, and white dots that look like yachts are moored. On the northern coast there is a wide sandy beach drawing an arc, and beside the small harbor to the south a block of large buildings has formed. The coastal land includes parts made by reclamation and seawall work. The flooding maps of the official hazard map show how far water is expected to come in heavy rain or storm surges. The arrangement of the two lines, the street and the tracks, has hardly moved since 1961-69, and only the contents inside them have been replaced.