Former Marunaka Yokonaka Shoten

Former Marunaka Yokonaka Shoten: Five Merchant Storehouses in Nagai

Former Marunaka Yokonaka Shoten (旧丸中横仲商店, Kyū-Marunaka Yokonaka Shōten) is a group of five merchant storehouses in the Aramachi district of Nagai, Yamagata Prefecture, built between the late Edo period and the early Showa era and registered together as Registered Tangible Cultural Properties on 4 August 2015.

The five buildings are the Sugar Storehouse, the Storehouse, the Pawn Storehouse, the Flour Storehouse and the Edo Storehouse, carrying consecutive registration numbers 06-0154 to 06-0158. Shoten simply means a shop or trading house. Yamagata's prefectural tourism association lists the site as the Former Marunaka Yokonaka Shoten Storehouse Group.

Addresses vary with the source. The Agency for Cultural Affairs database gives a separate lot number for each building: 2459-2 Aramachi for the Sugar Storehouse, 2460 for the Storehouse and the Pawn Storehouse, and 2461 for the Flour and Edo storehouses. The prefectural heritage database uses 2459-2 for all five, while the tourism association gives the street address, 6-49 Aramachi. All of them point to the same property.

A River Trade Town and the Marunaka Yokonaka Business

Nagai grew rich on the Mogami River. According to the city's municipal profile, a merchant named Nishimura Kyuzaemon opened the river to cargo boats as far as Nagai in 1694. Once goods could travel downstream to the port of Sakata and on to Kyoto and Osaka, Nagai's landing became the starting point for shipments from the Yonezawa domain, and a class of wealthy merchants took shape in the town. River freight carried on for more than two centuries, until a light railway, the forerunner of today's Flower Nagai Line, reached Nagai in 1914.

Aramachi was part of that merchant quarter. The prefectural tourism guide describes it as a street of wholesalers dealing in wheat, sugar, provisions and sake, with pawnbrokers among them. The Marunaka Yokonaka business was one such wholesaler, trading in wheat, sugar and foodstuffs, and the names of its storehouses suggest that each commodity had a building of its own. For the Pawn Storehouse, the Agency's notes record a tradition that it held pledged goods during a period when the family also ran a pawnshop.

No published source explains when the business was founded or where its trade name came from. The buildings themselves tell part of the story: a storehouse already stood here at the end of the Edo period, three more followed in quick succession in the early Meiji years, and a timber-framed flour store was still being added in the Showa era.

How the Former Marunaka Yokonaka Shoten Storehouses Are Arranged

The property is long from east to west. The advisory report to the Council for Cultural Affairs, dated 13 March 2015, describes the layout as three rows: the large Sugar Storehouse stands south of centre, with the Storehouse and the Pawn Storehouse side by side to its northeast, and the Flour Storehouse and the Edo Storehouse paired along the northern edge. All five are aligned on the same long axis.

• Southern row: the Sugar Storehouse (1874), a single-storey building in the Dozo-zukuri earthen-wall style
• Middle row: the Storehouse (1874) to the west and the Pawn Storehouse (1875) to the east, both two storeys high
• Northern row: the Flour Storehouse (early Showa era, timber-framed, single storey) to the west and the Edo Storehouse (late Edo period, two storeys) to the east

The Agency's database dates the Edo Storehouse to the late Edo period (1830 to 1868) and the Flour Storehouse to the early Showa era (1926 to 1945). Four of the five are earthen-walled storehouses; only the Flour Storehouse has a conventional timber frame. Sizes range from 4 to 6 and a half ken in length and from 2 to 3 ken in depth (one ken is about 1.8 metres), and the Sugar Storehouse is the longest at roughly 12 metres.

The finishes share a family resemblance. Walls are rendered in white lime plaster, or Shikkui, and on the Storehouse and the Pawn Storehouse black plaster is used at key points for contrast. The heavy Tsuchido shutters show kakego-nuri, a plastering technique in which the meeting edges of door and frame are built up in stepped layers so they seal tightly. The Agency singles out this work on the Edo Storehouse as evidence of highly skilled plasterers. The Sugar Storehouse, the Storehouse and the Pawn Storehouse all use okiyane, a separate roof set over the sealed body of the storehouse.

Each building has its own page with details of structure and finish.

Why the Five Storehouses Were Registered

All five were registered under the criterion of contributing to the historic landscape of the country. The 2015 advisory report treated them as one ensemble, a merchant's storehouse group in the river trade town of Nagai, and pointed to the orderly three-row layout and the quality of the plasterwork, from black-plaster accents to kakego-nuri shutters.

The spread of dates matters too. A late Edo storehouse, three early Meiji ones and an early Showa timber store share a single lot, so the site records how the business added buildings as its trade changed. The prefectural tourism guide notes that although these are utilitarian storehouses, some are finished with black plaster, and that from the east side the group reads together with the storehouses on the neighbouring lot, a view it calls unusual for the area.

Nagai has other registered merchant buildings from the river trade era, such as the Saito Family Residence and the Yamaichi Soy Sauce Shop. At Former Marunaka Yokonaka Shoten, it is the storehouses alone that were registered as a group.

Visiting Former Marunaka Yokonaka Shoten: Access and Viewing

The five storehouses are privately owned and not open to the public; Yamagata Prefecture's heritage database also lists them as closed. Visitors cannot enter the grounds or the buildings, so a visit means looking at the exteriors from outside the property. Please do not step onto the private lot.

According to the prefectural tourism guide, the former shop building at the front has been converted into a cafe and is used for community events. Opening days can change, so check ahead if you plan to stop in. The guide lists the Yamagata Arcadia Tourism Bureau (tel. 0238-88-1831) as the contact for enquiries.

By rail, take the Yamagata Shinkansen from Tokyo to Akayu Station, about 2 hours 30 minutes, then change to the Yamagata Railway Flower Nagai Line for the roughly 35-minute ride to Nagai Station. From Nagai Station the Aramachi district lies about 1 kilometre to the southeast on the map, around 15 minutes on foot. Drivers can follow the city's tourism directions from Nanyo-Takahata IC on the Tohoku-Chuo Expressway via Routes 113 and 287, about 25 minutes. No visitor parking is advertised.

For the best overall view, follow the tourism guide's advice and look at the group from the east side. There is no official guidance on photography; if you take pictures from the public road, avoid capturing residents or cafe guests.