Okura

According to Mr Kitagawa Seiichiro. In Okura there were ten companies that made black tile and more than one hundred craftsmen. In Okura they made Akashi roof tile that was the only first class tile in Hyogo prefecture.They took clay for tile from the mountain of the upper reaches of the Asagiri River.In order to bake tiles they used double mouths of the Daruma kiln which had double dooms. They warmed dried clay formed tile, baked and finally smoked with wood and pine needles.As soon as they took tiles out of the kiln, they started to make another tiles. They made from 700 tiles to 800 tiles by one kiln at a time.Mr.kubo Naoaki says that. Many potteries of Akashi ware were mainly made by climbing kilns too. Kochi ware was exported, and besides Honobono ware. Asagiri ware, Hitomaru ware and Maiko ware were made. They made the octopus pot (the trap for octopus) brick and tile too.Mr Masuoka Yoshinori the president of Hinode Kogyo company says that: The Hinode kiln was the back of the present main office building of his company. They used mounded place. It was the big climbing kiln that had about ten rooms for baking in a row. He remembers that he went into it when he was a child. The products were inscribed to Akashi ware.

There were three public baths in Okura. In the old days, people didn’t have a bathroom in their home and the public baths were essential for them. Asagiri-yu in the east was removed in 2003. Hayashida tatami store next to Asagiri-yu keeps carefully a part of clothes box, the model of the inside of Asagiri-yu as the graduation project by a certain student and so on. Taisho-yu was opened in the early Meiji era and remade great in 1911 (the first year of Tisho era), so it was named after the era. Before being removed they warmed sea water and used it. Taisho-yu disappeared.Higashi-yu took over Tamatsubaki-yu in 1893 that was run during Edo period and is open now.Both widths of men’s bath and women’s bath are about 5.4meter, that is as same width as Tamatsubaki-yu.Its chimney is so tall that the chimney became the landmark of the town. They open Higashi-yu at 2 p.m. after hanging the shop certain at the front door. People enjoy healing their own bodies in the large bath tub of the public bath. After they refresh themselves they come back to their everyday lives. People of the town love the public bath because it is a part of their lives.

Okura was an old important transportation hub and after the Saigoku Highway was improved in Edo period it flourished as Okuradani stage. The Highway and its sideroads pass from east to west and many alleys from south to north cross them.The Saigoku Highway reaches the building at the west end of Okura and turns right and just left. That is called Tomi Shadan (visibility shutdown) as a trick to prevent the enemy from advance and set at the entrance of the town serving as a stage or the castle town. The L-shaped road is specially called kagi-no-te (shape of key). The limb of the Highway in the town zigzagged widely, so they could attack enemies from the place behind the buildings. This was a kind of Tomi Shadan.