Nobeoka Station Area about 60 years ago and today

History of Nobeoka Station Area

The Nippo Line runs north to south through the flat land on the north bank of the Gokase River, and Nobeoka Station is placed partway along it. In the middle of the aerial photograph, long-established rows of houses are packed on the west side of the station, and low flat land continuing to the riverbank spreads on the east side. At the top and bottom edges of the frame, corners of buildings with many long roofs lined up peek in. Nakagawara-machi 5-chome, where the corner at the top edge is, is the town that Asahi Kasei gives as the location of its nonwoven fabric plant and its fiber technology research laboratory. The use of the buildings at the bottom edge cannot be read from the photograph. The station, the rivers and the rows of houses appear; the large buildings only show their faces from the edges of the frame.

The flat land of a castle town where the river divides

When the Gokase River enters the Nobeoka Plain, it splits off the Ose River at Miwa, passes east through the urban area as two streams, and near the mouth joins the Hori River and the Kita River before flowing into the Hyuga-nada Sea. These are the two thick water surfaces crossing the frame diagonally from the lower left to the upper right; the northern stream close to the station is the Gokase River and the southern stream is the Ose River. On the side held between the two rivers, a small hill covered with trees appears toward the bottom of the left edge. It is the Shiroyama area, the site of Nobeoka Castle, and in the Edo period it was the center of a castle town that lords from five families governed in turn. The station is placed on the flat land to the north, one river away from that castle town.

It was in the 1910s and early 1920s that the castle town turned toward being a chemical town. In 1923 Noguchi Shitagau introduced the Casale ammonia synthesis process born in Italy and succeeded in industrializing ammonia for the first time in Japan. Using hydroelectric power from the Gokase River as the motive force, he started the business of Nippon Chisso Hiryo on the land of Nobeoka. In 1931 Nobeoka Ammonia Kenshi was founded, and in 1946 Nitchitsu Chemical Industry changed its company name to Asahi Chemical Industry. The addresses of Asahi Kasei's Nobeoka branch office and its Bemberg plant are in Asahi-machi south of the Ose River, and in Nakagawara-machi north of the station the nonwoven fabric plant and the fiber technology research laboratory are placed at the same lot number.

Paddies and roofs in 1961-69

The 1961-69 photograph conveys the extent of the east side of the station best. Even in the middle of the frame, from the station to the riverbank to the east, large dark surfaces of paddies divided by ridges occupy most of it, with narrow roads running diagonally among them. The rows of houses continue in a single line along the north bank of the Gokase River, and small clusters of roofs gather here and there in the paddies. The west side of the station contrasts with this: fine roofs are crowded together, and many north-south streets are drawn in parallel. With a single railway line as the border, town and paddies were sharply divided. North of the station the tracks spread into many lines, making up the width of the grounds, and extend in a bundle toward the group of buildings at the top edge.

A corner where long buildings line up in a grid spreads at the top edge of the frame, toward the left. The directions of the roofs are aligned, the edges of the site are enclosed by straight lines, and each building is far larger than the surrounding houses. To its east there is an open space holding an oval track, and further east the northern river comes down in a large arc. Across the river, the upper right is paddies all over, with a few settlements edged by trees clustered together. Over the water of the Gokase River, just south of the station, only one railway bridge crosses like a thin dotted line.

At the bottom edge, toward the left on the south bank of the Ose River, many long, narrow buildings line up in parallel. In the lower right corner bright lots of paddies are gathered together, with strips of different colors lined up regularly. On the mountain slope at the upper left there is one wide area of bare ground, cleared of trees and shining white.

Bridges that crossed in 1974-78

Most of the paddies east of the station are replaced by rows of houses in the 1974-78 photograph. Some pale fields remain on the river side east of the station, but the density of roofs has become almost indistinguishable from the west side of the station. The change over the rivers is even greater. A wide bridge crossing the two rivers diagonally appears at the lower center of the frame, and one more bridge crossing the river vertically has been added toward the right. On the riverbeds white sandbars spread widely, and the threads of water appear finely branched.

There is also change in the upper right across the northern river. In a corner along the river that was paddies in 1961-69, a compact site has been made where many long buildings with white roofs line up. The settlements edged by trees remain without changing shape, and the curves of their boundaries with the paddies can be read as they were. The grid of buildings at the upper left is in the same position as in the previous era, with part of the roofs appearing red. At the foot of the hill on the left, lots of new housing begin to line up as if climbing the slope, and the place that was white bare ground has also changed into rows of houses.

The station plaza and the outline of the rivers

In today's photograph, where housing and buildings fill the whole frame, paddies remain together only in the lower right corner and part of the upper right. The group of buildings toward the left of the top edge has not moved, and the oval track, showing the color of lawn, is also in the same place. East of the station, buildings with large white roofs stand here and there, and a thick street extending north to south continues straight to the diagonal bridge over the Gokase River.

The look of the rivers differs among the two eras and today's photograph. In 1961-69 a long, narrow island of sand lies in the water at the lower center of the frame, and in 1974-78 white sandbars are widely exposed on both riverbeds, with the water flowing split into many thin threads. In today's photograph the water appears dark and wide, and the sandbar remaining in the middle of the Gokase River is covered with green grass. Because the look changes greatly with the amount of water on the day of shooting, the size of the sandbars cannot be read as a difference between eras. Even so, if you overlay the lines of the levees and the positions of the bridges photograph by photograph, you can see that the outline of the river width has hardly changed. The town has spread without moving the shape of the rivers, as if filling the space inside them.

The improvement of the station surroundings carried out by the City of Nobeoka greatly changed the look of the station area. In April 2018 the station-front complex Encross opened, and a place where people gather was created in front of the station building. In 2006 and 2007 the city merged with Kitakata Town, Kitaura Town and Kitagawa Town and its extent widened, but the frame of the aerial photographs still shows the flat land held between the station and the two rivers.

Low flat land continuing to the bank of the Gokase River lies east of the station, and the other river, the Ose River, flows to its south. Assumed flooding is to be checked against the zones shown on the City of Nobeoka's hazard map. Although large buildings sit at the top and bottom edges, only the positions of the castle hill and the two rivers do not move at all, whichever photograph you switch to.