The History of Musashi-Kosugi

1608–1672

Tokugawa Ieyasu and the Kosugi Goten

Before the Tokaido was developed, the main road between Edo and Sagami was the Nakahara Kaido. A shogunal rest palace once stood along it.

In 1608, the Kosugi Goten was built along the Nakahara Kaido. It covered some 12,000 tsubo (about 40,000 m²) and served as a resting and lodging place for the shogun during falconry trips and journeys to Kyoto. Tokugawa Ieyasu is recorded as having used it.

Rebuilt in 1640, the palace was dismantled entirely in 1672. Nothing of the buildings remains, but the place name Kosugi Goten-cho still marks the spot today.

Near the palace the Nakahara Kaido makes two sharp right-angle turns — a defensive design known as the "kagi no michi" (key-shaped road), meant to stop attackers from charging straight through. The Tama River and nearby temples are thought to have served the same defensive purpose.

What you can still see The right-angle bends of the "kagi no michi" still survive in the streets of Kosugi Goten-cho.

1597–1611

Koizumi Jidayu and the Nikaryo Irrigation Canal

A 14-year engineering project that drew water from the Tama River and turned this area into productive rice country.

In 1597, while Tokugawa Ieyasu was inspecting the banks of the Tama River, the local magistrate Koizumi Jidayu proposed developing new paddy fields and building an irrigation canal. Construction began in 1599.

Jidayu directed the work himself, surveying elevations and setting the canal bed height section by section, working upstream from the lower reaches. After great difficulty, the canal was completed in 1611 — fourteen years after it was first proposed.

Because it irrigated two domains — Inage and Kawasaki — it became known as the Nikaryo ("two domains") Irrigation Canal. It watered the fields of some 60 villages and greatly increased rice yields.

What you can still see The canal still flows through Nakahara Ward. Along its branch, the Shibukawa, a walking path and rows of cherry trees make it a popular spring destination.

1673–1953

The Two "Kosugi Stations"

Kosugi was a "station" in the Edo period too — and in the twentieth century there was a Musashi-Kosugi Station in a different place from today's.

In 1673, Kosugi was designated a relay post on the Nakahara Kaido — a place where travellers and freight were handed on to the next stage. In that era, the word eki meant a post town, not a railway station. A memorial stone erected in 1848 is inscribed "Kosugi-eki, Inage domain, Tachibana district, Bushu," showing that Kosugi was indeed called a "station."

Much later, in 1927, the Nanbu Railway opened. What stood on the site of today's Musashi-Kosugi Station was a halt called "Ground-mae," named after a nearby sports ground. The station actually named Musashi-Kosugi was about 400 m away toward Tachikawa, near where the Fuchu Kaido crosses the line — right by the present-day Nakahara Ward Office.

In 1939 the Toyoko Line opened "Kogyo-toshi" (Industrial City) Station for workers at the many local factories. In 1944 the Ground-mae and Musashi-Kosugi halts were merged into the station we use today, and in 1945 the Toyoko Line opened its own Musashi-Kosugi Station. With stations packed too closely together, Kogyo-toshi Station was closed and absorbed into Musashi-Kosugi in 1953.

What you can still see Local memories of "a station near the ward office" refer to this earlier Musashi-Kosugi Station.

1724 – Showa era

Todoroki Ryokuchi Was Once the Tama River

The reason the place name Todoroki exists on both sides of the Tama River lies in a change to the river's course.

Present-day Todoroki in Nakahara Ward was originally a peninsula of land jutting into a southward bend of the Tama River, and it belonged to Todoroki village in Ebara district — today's Todoroki in Setagaya, Tokyo.

Repeated flooding, and major river works carried out by Tanaka Kyugu in 1724, straightened the meander in a large-scale "sekae" (channel realignment). Part of Todoroki was left stranded on the far bank, becoming an exclave.

The abandoned riverbed became the subject of a dispute between Todoroki and Kosugi villages, settled with Miyauchi village mediating. The name of the famous magistrate Ooka Echizen-no-kami appears on the judgment document.

Gravel extraction later left the area dotted with ponds. As these were filled in during the 1950s and 60s, Todoroki Ryokuchi was developed into the park we know today.

What you can still see The ground beneath Todoroki Athletics Stadium and Todoroki Arena is where the Tama River once flowed.