Ashiodozan 1- History and Relics
Ashiodozan Mining Town in the mountains of Tochigi Prefecture is infamous in Japanese history as a site of extreme environmental damage- so much so the town was mostly abandoned 40 years ago, the mines and factory shut down, and new standards in environmental care called for at the highest national levels. It had been a copper mining and processing town for over 400 years, at its peak supplying over a third of Japan’s entire copper supply, in the process though poisoning the nearby mountains with sulfurous acid gas from the plant’s smelters. Now it’s a creaking conglomeration of fading facilities- a power station, the factory, numerous barricaded mines, a train station, a temple, a school, and a small town of tumble-down wooden apartments, haunted only by a few aged holdovers with nowhere else to go.
The abandoned train yard, with 3 old white sulfuric acid tanks on the hill to the left, and the red-boned skeleton of the main factory in the distance.
Ashio takes its name from a probably apocryphal story: one day a monk was walking in the mountains and saw a rat carrying rice in its mouth. Surprised at this odd sight the monk grabbed the creature, tied a string to its foot, and followed it. It led him up to the foot of a mountain, where he found houses, set up a temple, and got the town going. The original kanji for Ashio- 足緒- means ’string foot’.
So Ashio was a sleepy mountain-temple village, then sometime in the 16th century copper was discovered. The Tokugawa Shogunate took control of the area, started up the first of many mines, and ramped up production. Ashio thrived, selling copper on to make the roofs for the Toshogu Shrine, the Edo Castle and the Kaneiji Temple in Ueno, as well as to mint copper coins and sell raw copper overseas.
Ashio- also known as the ”town of 1,000 houses.’
Miners of Ashio- graphic borrowed from my main source site on Ashio- ashiodozan.com
In the early 20th century the mining process was modernized and electrified, and production shot through the roof. The population of the village burgeoned to 39,000- a number I find very difficult to imagine living in that tight river valley. Soon after the second World War though production slowed down, as the environmental damage grew and the copper reserves dwindled. Finally the last of the mines were shut down in 1973.
Ashio smelters around the main factory complex.
I went to this haikyo with Su Young- we’d hoped to stay in Ashiodozan (‘Ashio copper mountains’) itself, or Mato- the actual terminus station of the Keikoku Watarase valley train line, but the few available ryokan (traditional Japanese inns) up there had no spaces available. So we over-nighted at the base of the line, in a town called Kiryu in Gunma, in a regular travel hotel.
The next day we were up early and off to the station. We were surprised to be met on the platform with a gaggle of teenage school-kids, seemingly off for some sporting event. We wondered whether Ashio was going to be quite as deserted as we’d expected, but it turned out we had nothing to fear- the kids all got off after a few stops. After about 20 minutes we were the only ones left on the small caboose.
Mountains brown with dead grass rolled by us on either side, and we took turns shifting in our facing seats to capture the best views up and down the valley. At each small station a few workers were strapping up Christmas lights- an attraction the train conductor came down the aisle and handed us flyers for. It seemed at once a little desperate- for tourists, for attention, for some investment, but mostly just sweet. I don’t think they expected it to be a big draw- they just liked to do it.
We got off at the terminus in Mato, and Su Young wasted no time setting us up with fresh maps and renting bicycles from the lone warden at the station. He seemed pleased to see us, and answered all our questions with smiles and good humor.
“Can we go inside the mines?” Smiling- Oh no, no… “Can we go inside the abandoned train station?” -No, no, but you can take pictures from outside, sure. “How about the factory?” Nodding – Yes yes, of course, you can see the factory through the fence.
We left our bags with him and took to the road on our bikes, clutching sheafs of hand-drawn maps and struggling to figure out the oddly-organized gears on our new bicycles.
Scarcely 200 meters along we stumbled on our first find, just off the road were two industrial relics- some kind of hauling machinery and a rusted silo.
Not fenced off, with no warning signs. On some Ashio English tourist information I had it said- ‘Please explore our town like a museum, please take lots of photographs’. So we did.
Of course we got excited and climbed up inside them immediately, there were still sacks of some mineral- maybe lime- in the top of one:
And some bits of rusted old machinery.
After that we climbed down, got back on our bikes, and headed off up the road towards the motherlode. I’ll post about that in the next few days.
The motherlode- factory and smelter in the distance, against pollution-balded mountains.
CONTENTS
Ashiodozan Mining Town- 1. History and Relics
Ashiodozan Mining Town- 2. Shrine and Apartments
Ashiodozan Mining Town- 3. Power Hub and Mine Complex
Ashiodozan Mining Town- 4. Train Station and Factory
FACTFILE
Location – Ashiodozan, Tochigi.
Entry - It takes 4 or 5 hours to get to Ashio from Tokyo, so staying overnight is probably advised. To get a place in a ryokan in Ashio, book well in advance, and speak good Japanese. Otherwise you can easily stay in a Toyoku Inn or other cheap hotel in Kiryu.
Highlights – The empty train on the way up, Christmas lights, ease of renting bikes, the friendly guy.
RUINS / HAIKYO
You can see all MJG’s Ruins / Haikyo explorations here:
Comments
12 Responses to “Ashiodozan 1- History and Relics”
Leave a Reply
Free updates via email
Featured Haikyo
10 Best Haikyo of 2009
Haikyoing is kind of an addiction. Every time I get back from a long haikyo weekend I think I`m done, it`s enough, but it never is.
Featured Story
Freya 13
Delathon Rent, a 28 year old technician on the Freya 13 space station, sits slumped in the Outer rim command pod.
Featured Ruin
Airplane boneyard in the Mojave desert
This is where planes go when they die, taken out to the boneyard to be shot in the head like Old Yeller.
Translator
By N2H Recent Comments
- MJG
on Top 10 Haikyo
Dudule- Thanks, and you describe very well how it ... - Drax- Cheers, and I have actually read that book, ...
- Can- The source about this place in particular- wh...
- Nice stuff! If you haven't already checked it out,...
- I like the view of the lower tier shot, and would ...
- Finally a new haikyo! Interesting to read about t...
Certification
Looks good, wish I could have come along too.
Looking forward to seeing more in the next two posts.
This place looks like a real haikyo, along the lines of the Gunma mining town and the sports world in Shizuoka.
Any mining carts you could push around on those tracks?
Looks very interesting. Can’t wait to see the rest of the pics.
[...] ～海ã®è¿‘ãã®éŠåœ’地～ ã†ã¾ãã†ã€‚ 足尾銅山ã®å»ƒå¢Ÿå†™çœŸ Ashiodozan Mining Town Haikyo – 1. History | michael john grist ç„¡é¡Œã®ãƒ‰ã‚ュメント 俺ã®ç†ç§‘ã®ãƒŽãƒ¼ãƒˆã†ï½ã™ã‚‹ [...]
I just found a treasure trove of haikyo in yamanashi all with easy access (will post soon) and was on my way back on the train reading the book and this looked like the next destination to go, the book says it is a tourist attraction and you can pay to enter part, is that true, or do I have to wait and find out in part 2
Can- Yeah, this was the weekend I asked you guys whether you wanted to rent a car and do a big haikyo the following weekend. Lots more photos coming.
Jason- True- more like a real, deserted haikyo. Carts, no, ha,
Lee- Thanks- lots more coming, takes forever to edit down from some 600 photos to a decent 50 or so.
japaneseeye- Treasure trove- share? I found a few minor ones towards Yamanashi (yet to post- can share if you’re interested), but haven’t really ventured across the prefectural line yet. Ashio- the pay part is just into a mine shaft a hundred meters or so. We didn’t have time for that- the stuff we looked at was all free- though involves climbing several fences. There must be far more than we even saw too.
Where in Tochigi is it?
Tornadoes- South-ish Tochigi. On a map find Kiryu which is a pretty big city at the Tochigi edge of Gunma, then follow the Keikoku Watarase line up to Ashio and Mato.
The main one I was looking for was the Resort Hotel from the book but there are lots of summer houses and potentially another hotel, although we lacked time to get there, I put the post on my blog
http://thejapaneseeye.blogspot.com/2009/01/yamanako-haikyo.html if you need any info give me a holler
[...] Nichitsu Mining Town- 4. Doctor’s Office [...]
[...] Nichitsu Mining Town- 4. Doctor’s Office [...]
[...] 1- Ashiodozan Ghost Town [...]