Kurayoshi Station Area about 60 years ago and today

History of Kurayoshi Station Area

Kurayoshi Station is a station on the San'in Line, yet it is not beside the old townscape of Kurayoshi lined with white-walled storehouses. The station was placed toward the lower reaches of the Tenjin River, on flat land long called Agei, and for a long time the station's name was Agei too. The frame of this location is centered not on the station itself but on the riverbed of the Tenjin River flowing to its west. The bundle of tracks in the station yard fits toward the right of the frame, the rows of houses stretching along the east bank of the river in the center, and the hills and farmland of the west bank toward the left. With the low river course in between, the land rises gently to the east and steeply to the west, where it becomes hills. The photographs record the process by which the town in front of the station filled the flat land in that valley little by little.

The station called Agei

The chronology of the City of Kurayoshi records as an event of 1903 that "the San'in Line opened as far as Agei Station." The castle townscape lay at the foot of the mountains to the south, and because the trunk line passed east-west across the flat land near the sea, the center of the town and the railway station were split into separate places. As if to fill that gap, in 1912 the Kurayoshi Line opened, branching south from the station toward the town. After that came a period in which the station in the town bore the name Kurayoshi and the trunk-line station was called by the name Agei.

On the Agei side too, town building around the station advanced early. According to the chronology, the Agei Station Area Land Readjustment Project was completed in 1955. In 1972 the station building was rebuilt, and Agei Station was renamed Kurayoshi Station. The digital archive published by the City of Kurayoshi's museum records the date as February 14, 1972 (Showa 47). With the same renaming, the station of the Kurayoshi Line in the town changed its name to Utsubuki Station. When the name Kurayoshi moved to the Agei station, the station name also acknowledged where the city's front door was.

The white riverbed and the bundle of tracks

In the 1961-69 photograph, the riverbed of the Tenjin River runs white through the center of the frame from top to bottom. The stream of water is thin and black, meandering along the western side of the riverbed, and the sand of the sandbars shines in patches. In the upper part of the center of the frame, a railway coming down diagonally from the northwest crosses the river, and toward the right it splits into many tracks to form a wide station yard. Fine roofs gather densely around the yard, and only that part looks like a town. On the east bank of the river the rows of houses continue as a thin band, and beside it a single line runs straight down to the south.

A little away from the town, the scenery returns to farmland. In the upper left of the frame, paddies divided into rectangles form a large grid, and a village is clustered at its top edge. The lower right is paddies divided finely, with many straight roads running lengthwise and crosswise, and the houses only stand in dots along one of those roads. A little left of the center, on the west bank of the river, a hill of dark forest juts out, sharply dividing it from the riverbed. A corner where white structures are placed together lies in the riverbed toward the bottom of the frame, suggesting that the river itself was used as a place of work.

On the station side, hills covered with forest press up to just north of the yard, and the black woods continue to the right edge of the frame. South of the yard, by contrast, it is flat, finely divided paddies spread to the bottom edge, and in the lower right corner rows of houses continue diagonally along a single road. The roofs gather densely only between the foot of the hills to the north and the tracks, and in the band along the east bank of the river.

Roofs added by 1974-78

The river in 1974-78 looks very different from the previous era. The riverbed that was pure white is covered with grayish-green grassland, and the water surface has widened and flows through the center. Bridges over the river are seen in three places, toward the top, at the railway and toward the bottom, showing that traffic between the east and west banks has increased.

On the east bank, the band of rows of houses has grown thicker, and the right half of the center of the frame is almost filled with roofs. Along the river, long, narrow buildings line up facing the same way, and in the lower right a group of large buildings and a bright, square sports ground appear within the grid of paddies. West of the river too, a corner appears where roofs form rows, and the large grid of paddies in the upper left has been divided into thin strips, showing stripes of brown and yellow. Around the middle of the top edge as well, several large buildings with white roofs stand between the lots of paddies on the east bank, and the town has begun to extend north along the river. Even so, the hills north of the yard remain forest, and the spread of roofs stops at the foot of the hills. This photograph catches the scene shortly after the station's name changed to Kurayoshi.

North and south of the station, both banks of the river

In 1980 the city began the Kurayoshi Station Area Urban Renewal Project, and in 1985 the Kurayoshi Line was abolished. The tracks that had extended into the town disappeared, and the flow of people heading south from the station shifted to buses and cars. The improvement around the station then proceeded in stages, and in April 2002 the Agei-Hawai Line Roadside Land Readjustment Project began as one of the Kurayoshi Station Area Improvement Projects. In today's photograph both the north and south sides of the yard are filled with roofs, and both sides of the tracks have become town of the same density. In January 2011 a new station building above the tracks was completed, and the city road Kurayoshi Station North-South Line, linking the north and south of the station, opened at the same time. The south and north that had been divided by the tracks are thus joined above the station.

North of the railway bridge, in today's photograph, a wide road crosses the river as if keeping close to it, and on the east bank it bends sharply to form a grade-separated junction. In the lower right of the frame, large flat-roofed buildings and wide parking lots gather, and much of what was the grid of paddies has changed into paved surfaces. The riverbed is covered in green with grass and trees, and the white sand remains only on part of the sandbars. On top of the hill on the west bank a round building and lines that look like walking paths can be seen, the grid of paddies in the upper left keeps its shape while turning uniformly green, and at its eastern end a school building and an open space that looks like a sports ground have been added. The town on the east bank has filled the center of the frame from top to bottom, but the forest on the hills north of the yard remains with almost the same outline as in 1961-69. The river course passes through the low land in the valley, and for assumed flooding, the City of Kurayoshi's official hazard map is the reference.

In Agei-cho 1-chome, about 1 km from the center of the location, there is a residential standard site for official land prices (Chika Koji). Its price, in the records up to the 2026 publication, was highest at 88,900 yen per square meter in 1998, 1999 and 2000, and from 2001 it has fallen little by little every year.