Former Kosaka Mine

The Former Kosaka Mine

The Former Kosaka Mine (旧小坂鉱山) is a group of mine buildings in the centre of Kosaka Town, Kazuno District, Akita Prefecture; its office, built in 1905, was designated an Important Cultural Property in 2002 (Agency for Cultural Affairs). The engineering department power room of 1904 was registered as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property in 2017, and the hospital memorial building of 1908 in 2003. All three are owned by Kosaka Town.

According to the chronology kept by Kosaka Machizukuri Co., the ore body was found in 1861, developed by Ōshima Takatō and the German engineer Curt Netto, and sold to the Fujita-gumi company in 1884. Smelting of the local black ore (kuroko) went into full operation in 1902, and by 1907 the mine led Japan in output value. All three buildings of the Former Kosaka Mine date from these Fujita-gumi years.

Three Buildings on Meiji Hyakunen-dori

The town has gathered the buildings of the Former Kosaka Mine along the street it calls Meiji Hyakunen-dori. The office was moved about 500 metres south of its original site (Agency for Cultural Affairs); the town dates its relocation and restoration to April 2001. The power room was taken down from the mine's works and rebuilt on the same street, which the town records as April 2014.

The hospital memorial building stands on the same lot as the office, 48-2 Furudate (Agency for Cultural Affairs). The town says the Kosaka Mine Hospital opened as the largest general hospital in the prefecture, but burned in 1949, leaving this one building in its original form. The power room sits midway between the Kōrakukan theatre and the office (Kosaka Machizukuri Co.).

Each building tells a different part of the story. The office, headquarters of Fujita-gumi's Kosaka operation, is a 3-storey timber building with a Renaissance-style front. The power room, a single-storey building of brick walls on a timber frame, drove the forge and boiler shop where machinery was made. The hospital building, about 20 square metres, was the mortuary (Agency for Cultural Affairs). Construction and visiting details are on each building's page.

Walking the Former Kosaka Mine

Kosaka Town has placed 12 signboards with period photographs along Meiji Hyakunen-dori and calls the street an open-air museum. In June the acacia trees lining it flower white, and the scent has been chosen as one of the Ministry of the Environment's 100 Fragrant Landscapes (Kosaka Town). The buildings of the Former Kosaka Mine come one after another along this walk.

All three lie between about 0.4 and 0.6 kilometres north of the old Kosaka Station, now the Kosaka Railway Rail Park (based on coordinates in the Agency's database). The Rail Park advises taking the Shūhoku Bus bound for Kosaka to the Kosaka Shōgakkō-mae stop: about 60 minutes from JR Ōdate Station, or about 25 minutes from Towada-Minami Station on the JR Hanawa Line. By car, the Rail Park is about 3 minutes from Kosaka IC on the Tōhoku Expressway.

You can go inside the office, which is run as a mining museum with an admission charge, and the power room, which is now a cafe. No official information was found on access to the inside of the hospital memorial building. A combined ticket for the Rail Park, the Kōrakukan theatre and the Kosaka Mine Office costs 1,480 yen for adults, high school students included (Kosaka Railway Rail Park).