A Frontier Inn That Worked for Three Years
The Former Horomui Ekiteisho (旧幌向駅逓所, Kyū-Horomui Ekiteisho, also written Kyu-Horomui Ekiteijo) is a single-storey timber relay station and inn built in 1928 in Nanporo Town, Sorachi District, Hokkaido, and listed as a National Registered Tangible Cultural Property (登録有形文化財) on 29 November 2006. It faces east onto National Route 337 near the Horomui Canal, on the flat farmland east of Sapporo.
An ekiteisho was a Hokkaido institution with no exact equivalent elsewhere in Japan. Kitahiroshima City's education board describes them as posts equipped with a building and with horses and men, set up in places too remote to have inns or transport, offering lodging and the relay of people, mail and freight. The system grew out of Edo-period trading posts, was reorganised by the Meiji colonial administration, and eventually covered more than six hundred locations across the island. Every one of them was abolished when the system was wound up in 1947.
Nanporo Town's account puts the founding of the Horomui station in the late Meiji period and credits its establishment to a private operator; some sources give 1912 and the name Matsuda Yozō, though the details are reported with reservations and should be treated as tradition rather than settled fact. What is firmly dated is the building. It went up new in March 1928.
Three years later it was obsolete. The Yūbari Railway opened its Nopporo to Kuriyama section in November 1930, placing a station in the same district, and the relay post closed as a going concern in 1931. A building put up to last generations did the job it was designed for for about thirty-six months.
Why This One Was Registered
The Agency for Cultural Affairs registered the building under the criterion of contributing to the historic character of the national landscape (国土の歴史的景観に寄与しているもの), and its national database calls the surviving fabric valuable as a relic of transport during the settlement period. Almost nothing else from that network is left standing. Of six hundred and more relay posts, only a handful survive in any form, which turns an ordinary-looking wooden building on a truck route into a rare document.
The Plan Tells You Who Slept Here
The register records the interior arrangement in unusual detail, and it is worth reading closely. There are two guest rooms of ten mats each, both fitted with a tokogamae, the alcove structure of a formal Japanese reception room. A corridor runs between them and continues into the attached wing on the north side, where the bath is.
Alcoves are not what you would expect in a frontier bunkhouse. They are what you build when your guests outrank you. That matches the recorded clientele: Nanporo Town states the station took around 550 overnight guests a year, mostly government officials and travelling merchants. Divide 550 by 365 and the traffic looks thin, roughly one or two people a night, which is the real texture of the settlement period. The post existed less to be busy than to guarantee that an official crossing this stretch of plain in winter would find a warm room at the end of the day.
Outside, the building reads as a hip-and-gable roof entered from the gable end, with a separate gabled porch breaking the line of the elevation and clapboard covering the walls. The attached northern wing is gabled. The roofing is sheet metal and the building area is about 100 square metres.
Visiting: What You Can and Cannot Do
Be clear about this before making the trip. Nanporo Town states plainly that viewing is from the outside only. There is no interior tour, no reception desk and no exhibition. The ten-mat rooms and the alcoves described above are a matter of record rather than something a visitor gets to see.
The building stands directly on Route 337, a road that carries steady traffic, so the sensible approach is to park properly and cross with care rather than stopping on the verge. Photographing the exterior from public land is unproblematic. Nanporo's education board handles enquiries about the property and can be contacted through the town office if you need to confirm anything about its condition or any temporary restriction.
Nanporo has no railway station. The railway that made the relay post redundant was itself abandoned in 1975, so the town is now reached by car or by bus from Sapporo and Ebetsu. Travellers without a car should check current bus timetables in advance, since services on this route are not frequent.
Set aside twenty minutes and the visit rewards the effort, particularly if you approach it as a piece of transport history rather than as architecture. Standing on the verge of a modern trunk road, looking at a building that lost its purpose to a railway which has itself vanished, is a compact lesson in how quickly infrastructure rewrites a landscape.
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Q&A
- Can I go inside the Former Horomui Ekiteisho?
- No. Nanporo Town states that the building is open to exterior viewing only. There is no guided tour, no visitor facility and no admission charge. Plan the visit around looking at the outside of the building from the roadside.
- Where is the Former Horomui Ekiteisho and how do I get there without a car?
- It is at 3-3-19 Motomachi, Nanporo Town, Sorachi District, Hokkaido, on National Route 337. Nanporo has had no railway since 1975, so the options are driving or taking a bus from the Sapporo or Ebetsu direction. Check timetables before setting out, as services are limited.
- What exactly was an ekiteisho, and what did the Former Horomui Ekiteisho do?
- Ekiteisho were relay posts unique to Hokkaido that supplied lodging, horses and the forwarding of people and goods where no inns or transport existed. This one lodged around 550 guests a year, mainly officials and travelling merchants, according to Nanporo Town.
- Why did the Former Horomui Ekiteisho close so soon after it was built?
- The railway arrived. The Yūbari Railway opened through the district in November 1930, and the relay post ceased operating in 1931, roughly three years after the present building was completed in March 1928. The wider ekiteisho system was abolished nationwide in 1947.
- Is the Former Horomui Ekiteisho worth visiting if I can only see the outside?
- That depends on your interest. As architecture it is modest. As evidence it is rare: very few of Hokkaido's six hundred-plus relay posts survive, and this one sits on the road it was built to serve. Pair it with the nearby Horomui Canal for a short stop.
Basic Information
| Name | Former Horomui Ekiteisho (旧幌向駅逓所) |
|---|---|
| Location | 3-3-19 Motomachi, Nanporo Town, Sorachi District, Hokkaido |
| Designation | National Registered Tangible Cultural Property (Structure); register no. 01-0091; criterion: contributing to the historic character of the national landscape |
| Year Designated | Registered 29 November 2006 |
| Quantity | 1 building |
| Dimensions | Timber, single storey, sheet-metal roof; building area approx. 100 m²; hip-and-gable roof entered from the gable end, clapboard walls, gabled annexe to the north |
| Owner | Not recorded in the national register |
| Public Access | Exterior viewing only, free of charge; no interior access. Enquiries via the Nanporo Town Board of Education |
References
- National Database of Designated Cultural Properties, Agency for Cultural Affairs — Former Horomui Ekiteisho
- https://kunishitei.bunka.go.jp/heritage/detail/101/00005761
- Cultural Heritage Online — Former Horomui Ekiteisho
- https://online.bunka.go.jp/heritages/detail/196759
- Nanporo Town — Former Horomui Ekiteisho
- https://www.town.nanporo.hokkaido.jp/tourism/leisure/horomuiekiteijo/
- Kitahiroshima City Board of Education — Former Shimamatsu Ekiteisho, with background on the relay-station system
- https://www.city.kitahiroshima.hokkaido.jp/kyoiku/detail/00007660.html
Last verified: 2026.08.27