Tagawa City Coal and History Museum

This museum stands on the former site of the Ida Shaft of the Mitsui Tagawa Mine, once one of the largest coal mines in the Chikuho region. Since opening, this rare museum dedicated to coal has built a collection of approximately 15,000 coal-mining-related items. Exhibits include a model recreating the Ida Shaft around 1961 (Showa 36), tools once used in the mine, a diorama depicting coal being mined by hand, and a model of a riverboat used to transport coal.

The museum’s main highlight is the Sakubei Yamamoto Collection, the first collection in Japan to be inscribed on UNESCO’s Memory of the World Register. The museum holds 627 of the collection’s 697 items. Gallery 2 displays works from the collection as well as materials related to Sakubei Yamamoto. Outside, visitors can also see large pieces of machinery once used in coal mines and a reconstructed miners’ residence.

In addition to coal-mining materials, the museum displays horse-shaped and armored-warrior haniwa clay figures excavated from Nekosako Kofun No. 1, including a horse-shaped figure considered one of the oldest of its kind in Japan. A wide variety of weapons, armor, and horse tack excavated from Sesudono Kofun are also on display. The museum also houses and exhibits rare archaeological and historical artifacts of national significance, including Silla-style roof tiles excavated from the Tendai-ji Temple Ruins (Kami-Iida Abandoned Temple), said to feature the most ornate designs of their kind in Japan.

In the adjacent Coal Memorial Park, visitors can see the twin smokestacks and headframe that have become symbols of Tagawa, a city shaped by coal mining.