Former Standard Oil Company of New York Warehouse

What is the Former Standard Oil Company of New York Warehouse?

The Former Standard Oil Company of New York Warehouse is an oil depot built in 1905 in Kanegasaki-cho, Tsuruga City, Fukui Prefecture, and its brick North Building, South Building and boundary wall were registered in 2009 as three Registered Tangible Cultural Properties.

Most people in Tsuruga simply call it the Tsuruga Red Brick Warehouse (敦賀赤レンガ倉庫, Tsuruga Aka-Renga Sōko). The official name, 旧紐育スタンダード石油会社倉庫 (Kyū Nyūyōku Sutandādo Sekiyu Gaisha Sōko), writes "New York" with the old phonetic characters 紐育, and it records who paid for the buildings: the Standard Oil Company of New York. Today the North Building holds a large railway and harbor diorama, while the South Building is a restaurant hall.

The site lies on the east side of Tsuruga Port, where the Kanegasaki pier meets the shore, and roads run around all four sides. According to the Agency for Cultural Affairs, the North Building stands toward the north of the plot with its west gable facing the sea. The South Building runs parallel to it, 3 m away. The two are identical in size and form, each 35 m long and 15 m deep. The brick wall follows the north, east and south edges of the site.

A good way to take in the Former Standard Oil Company of New York Warehouse is to start on the west side, where the two gables line up facing the water, glance down the narrow passage between the buildings, and then walk around to the east to follow the wall.

History of the Former Standard Oil Company of New York Warehouse

Tsuruga became an international trading port in 1899, and oil began arriving directly from the United States, according to the city's entry on the Japan Heritage Portal. The Former Standard Oil Company of New York Warehouse was built close to the quays to hold that oil.

The design is said to be the work of a foreign engineer, and the bricks are said to have been shipped from the Netherlands. The warehouse's official website presents both points as tradition rather than documented fact.

The building changed hands several times. Standard Oil of New York pulled out of Tsuruga and sold the warehouse in 1940. In 1944 the military briefly used it to store equipment, and in 1951 the company now called Yamato Takahashi bought it as a commercial warehouse; the official site notes that it also served for a time as a store for kombu kelp.

Heavy snow brought down part of the roof in 1981, and the roof was re-covered in 1983. In 2003 the Japan Atomic Power Company bought the warehouse from Yamato Takahashi and donated it to Tsuruga City, which has owned it since.

The city drew up a redevelopment plan for the Kanegasaki area in 2012 and a specific plan for the warehouse in 2014. After structural reinforcement and repairs, the buildings reopened as the Tsuruga Red Brick Warehouse on October 14, 2015, Railway Day in Japan.

Three registrations and a Japan Heritage story

The North Building, South Building and Brick Wall of the Former Standard Oil Company of New York Warehouse were entered together on the national register as Registered Tangible Cultural Properties on January 8, 2009. They carry consecutive registration numbers, 18-0071 to 18-0073, and all three were registered for contributing to the historic landscape of the country.

• North Building: 1905, single-storey brick, tiled roof, building area 513 m²
• South Building: 1905, single-storey brick, tiled roof, building area 513 m²
• Brick Wall: around 1905, brick, 92 m in total length

The Agency for Cultural Affairs describes the North Building as one of the few industrial structures left from the modern port of Tsuruga, and ranks the two warehouses together among the largest brick buildings in Fukui Prefecture. The wall, in its view, belongs with the warehouses as part of the old harbor scene.

The Former Standard Oil Company of New York Warehouse is also a component of the Japan Heritage story "A Railway Across the Sea" (海を越えた鉄道, Umi o Koeta Tetsudō), recognized in fiscal 2020. The Japan Heritage Portal points out that harbor installations from the Meiji era were largely lost to later port works and wartime air raids, which leaves this warehouse as a rare witness to Tsuruga's international role.

The same text mentions two practical details of the oil trade. Sand was laid beneath the floor so that leaking oil would not spread into the ground, and the walls were marked with lines sized to the wooden crates that held the oil cans, along with numbers, so that stock could be counted at a glance.

Visiting the Former Standard Oil Company of New York Warehouse

The grounds of the Former Standard Oil Company of New York Warehouse are laid out as an open garden that anyone can walk into, so the exteriors of both buildings and the wall can be seen free of charge. Only the diorama hall in the North Building charges admission: 400 yen for adults and 200 yen for elementary-school children and younger, with children under 3 free. Groups of 20 or more pay 320 yen and 160 yen.

The complex is open from 9:30 a.m. to 10:00 p.m., and the diorama hall from 9:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m., with last entry at 5:00 p.m. The restaurants in the South Building keep their own hours. Everything closes on Wednesdays (or the following day when Wednesday is a public holiday) and from December 30 to January 2; special opening days are posted on the official website.

From JR Tsuruga Station, take the sightseeing route of the Gurutto Tsuruga loop bus to the Akarenga Soko (Red Brick Warehouse) stop. Tsuruga City's timetable gives the ride as 11 minutes, and the fare is 200 yen for adults and 100 yen for children, payable with IC transit cards. Not every run on the sightseeing route calls at the warehouse, so check the timetable before boarding.

For drivers there is parking for 60 cars, plus 3 bus spaces that must be reserved. The address the facility gives for itself is 4-1 Kanegasaki-cho, which differs from the registered address of 16-1 Kanegasaki-cho, so use the facility's address in a car navigation system.