Nagahama Station Area about 60 years ago and today

History of Nagahama Station Area

The shore of Lake Biwa closes in from the west, and just beyond Nagahama Station is already the lake. The water surface of the lake fills the left and lower left of the frame, a boat basin enclosed by breakwaters juts out southwest of the station, and west of the station there is a small cape covered with trees. This cape is the site of Nagahama Castle, the place that has been laid out as Hokoen Park. It is land where the lake, the castle and the station are packed into a narrow space, and as you advance through the eras you can clearly follow how the shoreline itself is pushed out toward the lake.

A castle and a port open to the lake

The City of Nagahama writes that the foundation of the town of Nagahama lies in the Tensho years, when Hashiba Hideyoshi renamed the land of Imahama as Nagahama, gathered merchants from the castle town of Odani Castle and other places, and built a castle town with a free market (rakuichi). In the photograph too, the castle site is on a cape facing the lake, and the town spreads to its east. The fine grid of rows of houses continuing toward the upper right of the frame is the urban area that descends from that castle town.

The presence of a castle on the lakeshore was carried over directly into the railway of the Meiji era. In 1882 a railway opened between Nagahama Station and Tsuruga Station, and at the same time a railway ferry linking Nagahama and Otsu went into service. According to the records of Shiga Prefecture, a port where the boats could berth was made at this time by digging open the inner moat of Nagahama Castle. The station building completed in the same year was a Western-style building designed by a British engineer, and as the oldest surviving station building in Japan it is now part of Nagahama Railway Square.

The role of crossing the lake by boat as a transfer did not last long, however. When the Tokaido Line opened in 1889, Nagahama ended its role as a transfer station for the ferry to Otsu, and the port changed into the departure point for sightseeing boats to Chikubu Island. In 1952 it was designated a local port. Eventually the sightseeing boats grew larger and sand from the lake came to collect in the port, so the prefecture began work to move the port in 1959. The work pumped up sediment from the lakebed offshore to fill in the shore, and the new Nagahama Port opened in July 1963.

Until the water surface turned into land

The 1961-69 photograph already shows that new port. Southwest of the station, two breakwaters jut into the lake in a hook shape and enclose a boat basin, and at their base whitish flat ground, just reclaimed, spreads out. The cape west of the station is covered with dense trees, and south of it is still water all over. Inside the station grounds the tracks are bundled widely and split into a line curving southeast along the lakeshore and a line extending straight north. On the lakeshore in the upper left there is a factory with long buildings with sawtooth roofs lined up, and the right side of the frame is large lots of paddies continuing without end. In the lower right too one factory with a white roof can be seen. In the middle of the top edge, several black masses of trees are scattered among the fine grains of roofs, showing that clumps of trees remained inside the old town. Along the lakeshore extending southeast, rows of houses press up to the very edge of the shore, and the tracks run inside them, parallel to the shore.

When you switch to 1974-78, the shoreline shifts far toward the lake. Where there was water south of the cape, a large polygonal area of reclaimed land juts into the lake, and a round plaza and the roads and plantings surrounding it are drawn inside it. In the records of Shiga Prefecture, the reclamation of the lakeshore at Hokoen Park began in July 1969 and was completed in October 1971. Together with laying out the new park, land for a 25 m wide road going around the lake was also secured here. In the photograph too, one road traces the edge of the reclaimed land. Among the lots of paddies to the east, two wide white surfaces that look like sports grounds appear, and from around them the roofs of houses begin to spread into the paddies.

In the 1979-83 photograph, buildings and paved surfaces have increased around the round plaza of the reclaimed land. Roofs of houses enter among the paddies on the right side of the frame, and the lots of paddies are shaved away little by little. The factory with sawtooth roofs remains in the same shape on the lakeshore in the upper left. Inside the station grounds the tracks are still bundled widely.

If you want to know the assumed flooding of the reclaimed land on the lakeshore and the low land close to the lake, opening the hazard map published by the City of Nagahama is the reliable way.

The west side of the station and the lakeshore today

In today's photograph tall buildings line up on the polygonal reclaimed land, and the round plaza remains with its shape kept. The cape of Hokoen Park is in the same place, still covered with trees, and according to Shiga Prefecture's river improvement plan, a nature restoration project to regenerate the artificial lakeshore has been carried out at Hokoen Park, and a sandy beach and reed beds have been regenerated. On the castle site, the Nagahama Castle Historical Museum opened in 1983.

The change around the station is the other thing to look at. In the station grounds, where the tracks were bundled widely in the older eras, the band of tracks has narrowed, and on its west side a large parking lot and square roofs line up. North of the station one tall building stands, and only it is tall among the low rows of houses around it. On the lake side the water surface turned into land, and on the station side the west of the grounds filled with cars and buildings. In two places, the shore and the station, the look of the land has been replaced era after era.

This look of the west side of the station overlaps with a project that the City of Nagahama carried out in fiscal 2004 to fiscal 2008 using a community development grant. According to the city's post-project evaluation, during this period the Nagahama Station building was rebuilt in a form spanning over the tracks, and a free passage, a station plaza, a paid parking lot west of the station and a bicycle parking area were built. The wide parking lot seen west of the grounds in the photograph matches in position the paid parking lot west of the station listed in the project.

Even so, the framework of the town has not moved. The grid of streets continuing to the upper right traces the same lines as in the 1961-69 photograph, and the direction of the tracks curving southeast along the lakeshore has not changed either. The paddies on the east side have been almost entirely replaced by housing lots, and green lots remain together only in the lower right corner. Near them a straight waterway, not seen in the older eras, has been drawn with green embankments. In the upper left, a road runs along the lakeshore in a gentle arc in front of the factory with sawtooth roofs, separating the rows of houses on the shore from the water surface. On the lakeshore to the southeast, long, narrow rows of houses alongside the tracks continue without a break up to the near side of the waterway. The cape of the castle and the breakwaters of the port keep appearing in every era as the two landmarks that fixed the shore of Nagahama.