> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://www.lawrencetravelstories.com/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # Wadahori-machi, Tokyo: The Vanished Town That Kept Gunpowder, Graves and Water - URL: https://www.lawrencetravelstories.com/tokyo-wadahori-eng/ - Published: 2026-10-29T09:39:17.000Z - Updated: 2026-10-29T09:42:40.000Z - Description: In Tokyo's Suginami Ward, one name lived as a town for only six years: Wadahori. On its ground a Yayoi-period tomb, a shogunate powder store, the dead of Tsukiji and the pipes that fed the capital took turns. Five documented stories show how a quiet residential district came to hold them. - Author: Lawrence [Tokyo Historical Travel Stories: Castles, Old Towns & LegendsExplore Tokyo through historical travel stories and guides. Discover castles, old towns, rivers and local legends across the country.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f6/5d/f65d15e6-b5c3-4e06-9142-bd894389f4bd/content/images/icon/Gemini_Generated_Image_gpc0phgpc0phgpc0---Edited-febd3c87-6250-41ee-b006-f5d342ed0602.png)Historical Travel StoriesLawrence![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f6/5d/f65d15e6-b5c3-4e06-9142-bd894389f4bd/content/images/thumbnail/Gemini_Generated_Image_6yc0s16yc0s16yc0-02d97b68-b6af-4c97-82be-16968c449700.png)](https://www.lawrencetravelstories.com/tokyo-dong-jing/) 🗺️ Welcome to Historical Travel Stories. Forget superficial sightseeing itineraries; we offer in-depth geo-historical explorations grounded in official records (verified via a four-tier research process) and complemented by short videos. Every day, we reveal a hidden urban gem—a secret spot unknown even to the locals—completely free of charge. 💡 Join a community of discerning travelers. Simply enter your email to instantly unlock audio guides and one-day itineraries, and carry our exclusive historical walking maps with you on your journey. --- > This is a historical travel story and a walking route through [Suginami Ward](https://www.lawrencetravelstories.com/tokyo-suginami/), in western [Tokyo](https://www.lawrencetravelstories.com/tokyo-dong-jing/). It follows five places in what used to be the town of [Wadahori](https://www.lawrencetravelstories.com/wadahori-machi-he-tian-ku-ting/): a shrine grove with Yayoi-period tombs, a pilgrim temple, the site of a powder magazine, a cemetery moved from central Tokyo, and the road above a water main. By the end you will know what lies beneath this ordinary district, and you will have a route you can walk. A station on the Keiō line was once named for what lay behind it. *Kayakuko-mae*, said the board: in front of the powder magazine. That was 1913\. By 1917 the name had become Matsubara. In 1935 it became Meidaimae, in front of Meiji University, and the powder was no longer part of the sentence. Beside the main gate of the university's Izumi campus, on a low earthen bank, the older word still stands: a small sign headed with the characters for “site of the saltpetre store.” Next door is a cemetery. Powder, students, the dead, a railway. They lie side by side as if they had always been neighbours. On maps from before 1932, this land belonged to a town called Wadahori. It lasted six years. ## A name with a short life In 1889 four villages (Wada, Horinouchi, Izumi and Eifukuji) were merged into a single village, Wadahorinouchi. On 1 July 1926 it became a town and shortened its name to Wadahori. On 1 October 1932 Tokyo City swallowed eighty-two surrounding municipalities and cut them into new wards. Wadahori, Suginami, Igusa and Takaido became Suginami Ward, and the town's name left the administrative map. “Wadahori” looks like a Meiji-style compound: Wada plus Horinouchi, trimmed. It leaves out Izumi and Eifuku altogether. That reading is an inference from the record, and local histories should be checked before it is repeated as fact. The name went; the ground stayed. What follows are five things the ground was asked to hold. [🎧 Listen to an exclusive conversational audio guide: To cater to travelers of different linguistic backgrounds, Lawrence has recorded in-depth audio tours—available on Spotify or Apple Podcast in ENGLISH✅. We invite you to listen and read along as you step back into history. Subscribe to unlock access ☘️](#/portal/signup/free) ## ## 1\. Ōmiya: the graves before the god Beyond the north gate of Ōmiya Hachimangu (大宮八幡宮) a path runs along the Zenpukuji River. A stone marker and a signboard stand there, headed “Ōmiya Site.” In 1969 excavators on the old shrine ground found three square-ditched tombs of the late Yayoi period. They contained red-painted pottery, comma-shaped *magatama* beads and tiny glass beads. Across the river, the Matsunoki site has house remains of the same period, and researchers reasoned that the dead were leaders of that settlement. The finds were designated a ward cultural property in 1982. No record gives the person's name. We know only that someone laid that person down, with the ornaments they had worn, in a four-sided trench. The shrine reads the site this way: the tombs almost coincide with the old sanctuary, so a reverence for the place that was already ancient may have led to the founding of the shrine. That is the shrine's interpretation. Several centuries separate the tombs from the shrine, and no document proves a continuous thread between them. 0:00 /1:22 1× The Buried Chiefs Of Tokyo S Samurai Shrine The shrine's own origin story belongs to a different kind of evidence: tradition. It says that Minamoto no Yoriyoshi and his son Yoshiie, passing through after the Former Nine Years' War, saw white clouds trailing like eight banners and took them as a sign of the god Hachiman's favour. In thanks, in 1063, they installed a branch of the deity from Iwashimizu Hachimangū in Kyoto. (*Hachiman* can be read as “eight banners.”) This is legend, not established fact. What can be checked is later. A document kept at Kumano Nachi Taisha records a visit by a priest of Ōmiya in 1362, and a Kamakura-period roof tile was dug up in the precinct. By the fourteenth century the shrine is no longer only a story. Then came the Meiji separation of Shinto and Buddhism. The shrine's attached temple, Ōmiya-ji, was abolished, and according to a travel source about 35,000 *tsubo* of grounds were taken by the government (figure to be verified). Some 15,000 *tsubo* remain, still the third-largest shrine precinct in Tokyo's twenty-three wards. A stone pagoda from the lost temple now stands in Horinouchi 1-chōme, a ward-designated cultural property, away from the shrine it once served. The grove was designated a natural monument in October 1933, and the surrounding Wadahori scenic district was marked out the same year in January. *Holographic Sensory Cue:* Only what can be observed today or is documented is recorded here; what Yayoi people heard and saw cannot be known, and nothing is imagined for them. Behind the main hall the trees are mostly hinoki cypress, with camphor and evergreen oaks among them and Yoshino cherries in the mix, according to the metropolitan sign. Past the north gate the river path runs through the park, where a travel source counts about 700 cherry trees along the riverside. This ground was low and prone to flooding, and rivers spilling over it tended to leave pools (Tokyo Metropolitan park plan). The park's present pond is artificial, made during river works in the 1950s. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f6/5d/f65d15e6-b5c3-4e06-9142-bd894389f4bd/content/images/2026/10/1-10.jpg) ## 2\. Horinouchi: a road walked to shake off bad luck In 2007 a dig at what is now the grounds of Joshibi University turned up a tea bowl marked with the kana *shigaraki*. The ward links it with the tea houses and eateries that once lined the pilgrim road to Myōhōji (妙法寺). (The explanatory text available is incomplete, so the link remains to be confirmed.) A bowl leads to a road. It was called the Horinouchi road, or the Myōhōji road. It left the Ōme Highway at Nabeya Yokochō, in Nakano, and ran to the temple in Horinouchi village. The ward's signboard adds that it also marked the boundary between Wada and Kōenji villages. The temple's own tradition says it began as a Shingon nunnery. In the Genna era (1615–24) a priest named Nichikei converted it to the Nichiren sect in memory of his mother, and its founding priest, Nichien, is said to have died in 1621\. That is temple tradition, hard to check item by item. What made the temple famous was a statue. In 1698 Hokke-ji at Himonya, in Meguro (today's Enyū-ji), was forced to leave the Nichiren sect, and its statue of Nichiren was moved to Myōhōji. From then on it drew Edo's townspeople as the “Founder who wards off calamity” (*yakuyoke Soshi*). A second tradition says the statue was carved by Nichiren's disciple Nichirō from a sacred log that drifted ashore at Yuigahama after Nichiren's exile to Izu in 1261\. Tradition, not proof. A temple's forced conversion thus made another temple's fortune. That is one way history moves. As for the pilgrims, the ward notes that the *Edo meisho zue* ranked the crowds with those of Asakusa's Kannon, and that the shoguns Ienari and Ieyoshi are said to have rested in the temple's study. An Edo doctor's essay recorded hundreds of tea houses and eating places between Shinjuku and the temple gate. Hiroshige drew the pilgrimage in the Tenpō years. 0:00 /1:10 1× Tokyo S Hidden Prehistoric Graveyard Shrine It was a road walked to drive off misfortune, lined with places to eat and drink. Devotion and pleasure shared the same road without apparent friction. That is an interpretation, but perhaps it is how Edo people understood a day out of the city. The classic *rakugo* piece “Horinouchi” takes place on this very pilgrimage. The temple today keeps a nationally designated iron gate and, designated by Tokyo, the Founder's Hall, the study and the Niō gate. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f6/5d/f65d15e6-b5c3-4e06-9142-bd894389f4bd/content/images/2026/10/2-10.jpg) ## 3\. The powder magazine: from shogunate to campus Return to the bank by Meiji University's gate. In the 1750s the shogunate established the Izumi-shinden saltpetre and powder store here: about 18,896 *tsubo* (roughly 62,000 square metres) and five storehouses. Three musket-powder officials lived on site in yearly rotation. Guard duty and odd work fell to sixteen nearby villages, each sending three men in shifts, day and night. The safety of the store, in other words, rested on the labour of farmers. At the Meiji Restoration the imperial forces took it over. Its ammunition is said to have been used against the Shōgitai at Ueno and in the campaigns in the north (*said*, not confirmed). The site then passed from the Ministry of Military Affairs to the Army as the Izumi-shinden Powder Depot, guarded by an infantry regiment from Azabu, and was closed in the late Taishō era. Until the late Meiji period the depot was surrounded by scrub woodland and zelkova, home, it was said, to foxes and raccoon dogs, and to stories of travellers bewitched. That is local tradition. What it tells us is how people speak about ground they are not free to enter. 0:00 /1:27 1× From Gunpowder To Graduates The railway kept the word. The Keiō line opened its station here in 1913 as Kayakuko-mae, renamed it Matsubara, and in 1935 made it Meidaimae. The Tamagawa Aqueduct ran beside the site; a trace of a bridge can still be seen near the university gate. In 1930 Meiji University bought the land for its preparatory courses, used it first as a sports ground, and opened the campus in 1934\. In that same year, 1930, Tsukiji Hongwanji acquired another part of the old depot for a cemetery. A parcel that once stored the means of destruction was divided between a university and a graveyard. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f6/5d/f65d15e6-b5c3-4e06-9142-bd894389f4bd/content/images/2026/10/3-12.jpg) ## 4\. The cemetery that moved with the city Tsukiji Hongwanji's Wadahori Cemetery (築地本願寺和田堀廟所) sits at Eifuku 1-chōme, next to the old depot ground. On 1 September 1923 the fires that followed the Great Kantō Earthquake destroyed Tsukiji Hongwanji and its fifty-seven sub-temples. The main hall was rebuilt where it stood. The graves could not stay. When the Army Ministry's former powder-depot land came up for sale, the temple applied in 1929, was granted the land, took ownership in 1930 and named the ground Wadahori Cemetery after its location: about 12,000 *tsubo*, promoted as a modern, park-style cemetery with a view of Mount Fuji. This was not unique. The seismologist Takemura Masayuki finds that Tokyo's reconstruction caused the largest relocation of temples since the Great Fire of 1657, some 270 years earlier. Tsukiji and Asakusa Hongwanji bodies were among them. Tsukiji itself is made land. After the 1657 fire the shogunate gave the temple a shallow sea to fill. Fishermen from Tsukuda and Ōwada in Settsu, near today's Osaka, had been brought to Edo on the shogun's order and had built Tsukudajima in 1644; they helped reclaim it. In the Wadahori Cemetery today there is a burial ground for Tsukudajima families and a stone that tells where thirty-three of their ancestors came from. 0:00 /1:03 1× Tokyo S Evicted Dead A line runs from an Osaka fishing village to the Edo shoreline to the earthquake city to an army depot in the western suburbs, and it ends in a cemetery. Among the others buried here, the ward's sign names Higuchi Ichiyō (樋口一葉), Kujō Takeko, Kaionji Chōgorō, Koga Masao, Mizutani Yae and Hattori Ryōichi. Ichiyō died on 23 November 1896, aged twenty-four. An older grave-visiting account (undated; the present state should be checked) says her stone is inscribed “family ancestral grave” and carries her Buddhist posthumous name only on its side, and that about a dozen people attended her funeral. On 25 May 1945 an air raid burned every building in the cemetery. A temporary hall stood until the main hall was rebuilt in 1953. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f6/5d/f65d15e6-b5c3-4e06-9142-bd894389f4bd/content/images/2026/10/4-10.jpg) ## 5\. Pipes, rails and a vanishing name The last story has no person in it. Tokyo City began its First Waterworks Extension in 1913\. By fiscal 1924 the first phase had produced, among other works, the Sakai treatment plant, a main between Sakai and Wadahori, and the Wadahori reservoir. After the earthquake, reconstruction funds hurried that main to completion by fiscal 1928, and the whole programme was finished only in fiscal 1936. The name “Wadahori,” in other words, was entered in Tokyo's water system two years before the town existed. After the earthquake, thirteen towns, Wadahori among them, formed the Arakawa-Tama Waterworks Union. Its water came from the Tama River, was filtered at Kinuta and was sent north through some 17 kilometres of 1.1-metre pipe. The road above it runs dead straight for about 7.7 kilometres from a point just west of Myōhōji. To protect the pipe, heavy vehicles are barred. 0:00 /1:24 1× That is why, in a district of bends, you find a road that never turns. The railway arrived last. In January 1933 the company renamed itself Teito Electric Railway (*teito*: the imperial capital), after the 1932 expansion had made its suburban route part of the capital. On 1 August 1933 the line from Shibuya to Inokashira Park opened, with Eifukuchō and Nishi-Eifuku among the new stations. The land it crossed was largely undeveloped and its finances were poor. At Meidaimae the overpass built in 1933 left room for an outer loop, a planned “second Yamanote line” that was never built. In November 1931 Tokyo City's temporary expansion office compiled status reports on the towns it was about to absorb. Wadahori was one of them (that volume has yet to be located). Then the town ended in 1932\. The name did not: the scenic district of January 1933, the cemetery, the water supply station, and Wadahori Park (planned 1957, opened 1 August 1964) all kept it. A late-war family memoir, one person's testimony and not an official finding, says that incendiaries aimed at the Wadahori water facility fell instead on Izumi on 25 May 1945 and burned the writer's house in Hōnan-chō. The family survived because conscription and evacuation had scattered them. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f6/5d/f65d15e6-b5c3-4e06-9142-bd894389f4bd/content/images/2026/10/5-11.jpg) ## Hachiman, the Founder and the Pure Land: the layered faith of Wadahori A first fact about the framework itself: no Indigenous cosmology is documented for this plateau. What the Yayoi people believed is unknown, and anything said about it would be speculation. This article does not offer any. The documented frameworks are layered, and they sit on top of each other: - **Hachiman worship (Shinto–Buddhist syncretism).** Ōmiya Hachimangu follows the Seiwa-Genji warriors' veneration of Hachiman, and until the Meiji separation of the two religions the shrine had a Buddhist temple attached. Hachiman is a warrior's god who later became a protector of births, children and the avoidance of calamity. The institution is documented; the 1063 foundation story is tradition. - **Nichiren Buddhism and the idea of *yakuyoke*.** The Founder statue at Myōhōji drew pilgrims because Edo people believed it could turn calamity away. That belief is documented, and it explains why a country nunnery became a city dweller's destination. A 1451 moon-waiting stone inscribed with the Nichiren invocation, held in Suginami, shows how followers absorbed folk practice (its findspot is not stated). At Eifukuji stands a five-ring *kōshin* memorial dated 1646\. These small commoners' devotions sit beside the great temples. - **Jōdo Shinshū remembrance.** The Wadahori Cemetery belongs to the Hongwanji branch of the school. In the usual understanding of this tradition, the dead are received into Amida's Pure Land; a grave is where the living remember, not where the dead dwell (to be confirmed against a Hongwanji source before relying on the wording). Two modern claims should be named as modern. Calling Ōmiya Hachimangu “the navel of Tokyo” is promotional language, and sightings of “little old men” in its grounds belong to urban legend. They show how people talk about the place today and are not historical evidence. Because no single native cosmology covers the whole district, the frame that runs through all five stories is a secular one: **memory geography**, which is to ask how an administrative name that has vanished goes on attaching itself to what remains. ## Resonance Node ***Resonance Node: the “site of the saltpetre store” sign and the bank beside it*** If you have time for one place, go to the main gate of Meiji University's Izumi campus. Here lie layers of the shogunate's store, the Army's depot, the earthquake of 1923, the sale of 1930, the campus of 1934 and, next door, the cemetery that received Tsukiji's dead. No single person decided all of these. They simply came to rest beside one earthen bank, one after another. A second node is the “Ōmiya Site” marker outside the north gate of Ōmiya Hachimangu. The excavation was backfilled; part of the finds is displayed in the shrine's Seiryōden hall. ## Closing: the land that was held for others Looked at together, the five stories form a shape. Wadahori was repeatedly lent to outside needs, to store what a city could not put down and could not do without: a sacred terrace, a road of cures, gunpowder, the dead, then water and commuters. The villagers appear mostly as labour, as tea-house keepers on the pilgrim road, and as tenants of a bannerman's estate. That shape is seen afterwards. It was nobody's plan in any single age. The tombs at Ōmiya belonged to a local community, not to an outside power, and other Tokyo suburbs held similar installations. What belongs to Wadahori is the sequence: powder, then graves, then a campus, on one former parcel, inside a town that lasted six years. What becomes of a place that is kept for other people's needs? And when a name outlives its town, what is the name keeping? In Ōhara 2-chōme, in Setagaya Ward, a water facility is still called Wadahori. The address belongs to Setagaya. The name belongs to a town that no longer exists. The water goes on to the city. If you would like the next hidden-history story in your inbox, you are welcome to subscribe to our newsletter. ## Sign up to unlock: One day Ititenary, conversational broadcasting ... Subscribe Email sent! Check your inbox to complete your signup. No spam, and you can unsubscribe at any time. ## Accessing the Physical Node The details below come from tourism and official listings. Please confirm current conditions before you travel. - **Suggested route:** From Meidaimae Station (Keiō and Inokashira lines), go first to the powder-store sign beside the main gate of Meiji University's Izumi campus. Then walk to the neighbouring Wadahori Cemetery of Tsukiji Hongwanji (Eifuku 1-8-1). Finish at Nishi-Eifuku Station, about seven minutes' walk from Ōmiya Hachimangu (Ōmiya 2-3-1). - **Ōmiya Hachimangu:** Gate hours are listed as 6:00–18:00 (to 17:00 from October to March). The path outside the north gate leads into Wadahori Park, which is open to enter freely. The “Ōmiya Site” marker is outside the north gate. - **Suginami Local Museum:** Ōmiya 1-20-8, next to Wadahori Park; listed hours 9:00–17:00; adult admission listed as 100 yen (please re-check). - **Myōhōji:** Horinouchi 3-48-3\. An older metropolitan leaflet gives about 15 minutes on foot from Higashi-Kōenji Station, or about 3 minutes from the Horinouchi bus stop. The pilgrim-road signboard is at Wada 3-10-1, and the straight water road begins near the temple's west side. - **Cemetery etiquette:** The Wadahori Cemetery is still in use. Please respect private graves. Its opening hours were not confirmed; ask the temple before you go. - **Where to stay:** The route needs no overnight stop. If you want to stay nearby, Shibuya or Shimokitazawa on the Inokashira line are convenient. ### 🇺🇸 US Reader Resources Recommended for US travelers: **Expedia**, **Booking.com**, and **Viator**. ### 🇬🇧 UK Reader Essentials Ad: Trusted for UK travelers: **Tripadvisor**, **GetYourGuide**, and **Saily**. ### 🗺️ Prepara tu viaje Plataformas recomendadas: **Civitatis**, **Booking.com** y **Holafly**. ### 🗺️ Préparez votre voyage Mes outils préférés : **GetYourGuide**, **Booking.com** et **Saily**. ### 🗺️ 旅行の準備に役立つツール 【PR】おすすめのツール：**Klook**, **Booking.com**, **Ubigi**. ### 🇭🇰 香港讀者專屬工具 推介使用：**Klook**, **Agoda** 和 **Airalo**。 ### 🇹🇼 台灣讀者推薦工具 【揭露】在地首選：**KKday**, **Agoda** 和 **Ubigi**。 ### 🗺️ Travel Essentials I use **Booking.com** and **GetYourGuide** for my global adventures. --- ## 💡Q&A **Q1 | How long did Wadahori-machi exist as an administrative district in Tokyo, and why did it disappear from modern maps? (Wadahori-machi Administrative History & Municipal Merger)** A：Wadahori-machi existed as an independent administrative town for only six years. Formed in 1889 through the merger of four villages—Wada, Horinouchi, Izumi, and Eifukuji—it was elevated to town status on July 1, 1926, shortened to "Wadahori". However, on October 1, 1932, Tokyo City absorbed 82 surrounding towns and villages, merging Wadahori-machi alongside Suginami, Iogi, and Takaido to form Suginami Ward. Consequently, the town name vanished from official administrative maps, surviving only in historical records. **Q2 | What is the historical relationship between the Yayoi-period ruins and the legendary founding of Omiya Hachimangu? (Omiya Ruins & Minamoto Clan Legend Historical Analysis)** A：Excavations within Omiya Hachimangu uncovered late-Yayoi period square moat tombs and grave goods, proving human settlement existed here long before the shrine. While shrine tradition links this ancient sacred space directly to its foundation, there is no continuous documentary evidence connecting the Yayoi burials to the shrine's establishment in 1063\. The foundational legend attributes the shrine's creation to Minamoto no Yoriyoshi and Yoshiie witnessing white clouds resembling eight battle flags. Documented history confirms its existence by 1362 through Kumano Nachi Taisha archives, while Meiji-era Shinbutsu-bunri decrees dismantled its adjacent Buddhist temple, Omiya-ji. **Q3 | How did the gunpowder storehouse and Tsukiji Honganji cemetery near Meiji University Izumi Campus come to be? (Saltpeter Storehouse, Tsukiji Honganji Wadahori Mausoleum & Military Transformation)** A：An earthen embankment beside Meiji University's Izumi Campus bears a marker reading "塩硝蔵地跡" (Saltpeter Storehouse Site), marking where the Tokugawa shogunate and later the Imperial Army stored gunpowder. Following the devastating 1923 Great Kantō earthquake and subsequent urban restructuring, Tsukiji Honganji's massive temple cemetery was forced to relocate, establishing the Tsukiji Honganji Wadahori Mausoleum in this area. The juxtaposition of military storehouses, cemeteries, and modern university campuses vividly reflects the intertwined history of Tokyo's military defense, religious relocation, and rapid urban expansion. --- > Want to follow the historical routes I’ve selected right from your phone as you walk? Click to join the exclusive Google map of historical tours titled "Historical Travel Stories"—import it to Google Maps on your phone with a single tap and let it guide you as you visit each historical site in person. [【Historical Travel Stories】World Deep History Itinerary & Spatial Investigation Map - Google My MapsThis map indexes our boots-on-the-ground historical investigations. Click on any pin to uncover forgotten urban legends, spatial power structures, and deep cultural memory. Unlock full investigations and bilingual audio podcasts by subscribing for free at: lawrencetravelstories.com![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f6/5d/f65d15e6-b5c3-4e06-9142-bd894389f4bd/content/images/icon/favicon-001-413dc5e8-474f-43e2-8a23-87ff89ab1c27.ico)Google My Maps![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f6/5d/f65d15e6-b5c3-4e06-9142-bd894389f4bd/content/images/thumbnail/thumbnail-df20ba39-9226-47e1-a0dc-44364075c074.jpg)](https://www.google.com/maps/d/u/0/edit?mid=1JE02pBiyLWkOk-bn7mBh2FgUVE8-dIE&usp=sharing&ref=lawrencetravelstories.com) --- #### 📖Reference and Further reading📖 ****First layer – Main sources of literature and institutions:** - [Suginami Ward, Ward Overview 2025 (区勢概要)](https://www.city.suginami.tokyo.jp/documents/10615/kusei2025.pdf?ref=lawrencetravelstories.com) — 1926 renaming to Wadahori; 1932 merger; population at founding. - [Suginami Ward, Ward Overview 2013](https://www.city.suginami.tokyo.jp/documents/10615/2013kusei-gaiyo.pdf?ref=lawrencetravelstories.com) — Wadahori scenic district designated January 1933. - [Suginami Ward, paper on the place-name Izumi (citing Mori Yasuji, Suginami Fudoki)](https://www.city.suginami.tokyo.jp/documents/7338/01-3-2.pdf?ref=lawrencetravelstories.com) — four villages, Wadahorinouchi, Uchida estate. - [Suginami Ward heritage sign: Site of the saltpetre store (塩硝蔵地跡)](https://www.city.suginami.tokyo.jp/s113/7433.html?ref=lawrencetravelstories.com) - [Suginami Ward heritage sign: Tsukiji Hongwanji Wadahori Cemetery](https://www.city.suginami.tokyo.jp/s113/7443.html?ref=lawrencetravelstories.com) - [Suginami Ward heritage sign: Ōmiya Hachimangu](https://www.city.suginami.tokyo.jp/s113/7446.html?ref=lawrencetravelstories.com) - [Suginami Ward heritage sign: Myōhōji](https://www.city.suginami.tokyo.jp/s113/7533.html?ref=lawrencetravelstories.com) - [Suginami Ward heritage sign: Myōhōji pilgrimage road (Horinouchi-michi)](https://www.city.suginami.tokyo.jp/s113/7559.html?ref=lawrencetravelstories.com) - [Suginami Local Museum, historical materials (1451 stele; 1698 statue transfer)](https://www.city.suginami.tokyo.jp/histmus/shiryo/1009085.html?ref=lawrencetravelstories.com) - [Suginami Ward, designated tangible cultural properties](https://www.city.suginami.tokyo.jp/s113/7576.html?ref=lawrencetravelstories.com) — Eifukuji k​ōshin tower; former Ōmiya-ji stone pagoda. - [Tokyo Metropolitan Waterworks history: First Waterworks Extension](https://www.suidorekishi.jp/pdf/s%5Fhistory%5F9.pdf?ref=lawrencetravelstories.com) - [Setagaya Ward, Wadahori Supply Station upper-use concept (2022)](https://www.city.setagaya.lg.jp/documents/3513/kihonkousou.pdf?ref=lawrencetravelstories.com) - [Tokyo Metropolitan Government, Wadahori Park Management Plan (March 2025)](https://www.kensetsu.metro.tokyo.lg.jp/documents/d/kensetsu/070328kbetsumpwadabori?ref=lawrencetravelstories.com) - [Tokyo Metropolitan Government, Wadahori Park plan (pond; ancient sites)](https://www.kensetsu.metro.tokyo.lg.jp/documents/d/kensetsu/070205kbetsumpanwadabori?ref=lawrencetravelstories.com) - [Meiji University Archives, "Izumi Campus history" (The Quarterly Meiji)](https://www.meiji.ac.jp/koho/meiji/6t5h7p00000iwccm-att/P76-77.pdf?ref=lawrencetravelstories.com) - [Edo-Tokyo Museum Digital Archives: 1931 Toyotama towns status survey, Ōkubo volume](https://www.edohakuarchives.jp/detail-182804.html?ref=lawrencetravelstories.com) - [Edo-Tokyo Museum Digital Archives: same series, Nakano volume](https://www.edohakuarchives.jp/detail-182811.html?ref=lawrencetravelstories.com) - [Chūō City, Tsukudajima founder's memorial (Tsukiji and Tsukudajima origins)](https://www.city.chuo.lg.jp/a0052/bunkakankou/rekishi/bunkazai/kuminbunkazai/morimagoemonkuyoutou.html?ref=lawrencetravelstories.com) - [Chūō City virtual museum: bombing of 24–25 May 1945](https://www.city.chuo.lg.jp/virtualmuseum/sensokiroku/history/1945%5F0524.html?ref=lawrencetravelstories.com) ****The second layer – secondary academic materials:** - [Takemura Masayuki, "Traces of the Great Kantō Earthquake in Tokyo" (Seismological Society of Japan, Historical Earthquakes 26)](https://www.histeq.jp/kaishi/HE26/HE26%5F115.pdf?ref=lawrencetravelstories.com) - [Suginami Board of Education, **Suginami no chimei* (Cultural Properties Series 19), excerpt via Suginami-gaku Club](https://www.suginamigaku.org/photo-his/names%5Fof%5Fplace.pdf?ref=lawrencetravelstories.com) - [Kujō Takeko and the Great Kantō Earthquake (Kindai Nihon Kenkyū 40, 2023), bibliographic record](https://cir.nii.ac.jp/crid/1050581070788819328?lang=en&ref=lawrencetravelstories.com) — research lead only. - [Suginami-gaku Club, "Wartime memories of Suginami" (2025)](https://www.suginamigaku.org/docs/250728%5Fsengo80.pdf?ref=lawrencetravelstories.com) ****Third layer – Supplementary information:** - [Wikipedia (ja): 和田堀町](https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%92%8C%E7%94%B0%E5%A0%80%E7%94%BA?ref=lawrencetravelstories.com) — 1930 population; town office; 1931 survey reference. - [Wikipedia (ja): 杉並区の町名](https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E6%9D%89%E4%B8%A6%E5%8C%BA%E3%81%AE%E7%94%BA%E5%90%8D?ref=lawrencetravelstories.com) — village-to-town name table. - [Wikipedia (ja): 大宮 (杉並区)](https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%A4%A7%E5%AE%AE%5F%28%E6%9D%89%E4%B8%A6%E5%8C%BA%29?ref=lawrencetravelstories.com) — Ōmiya as a sub-district of Wada. - [Transcription of the Ōmiya Hachimangu and ward signboards (Tetsudo-ch)](https://tetsudo-ch.com/12952895.html?ref=lawrencetravelstories.com) - [Transcription of the Ōmiya site signboard (Tetsudo-ch)](https://tetsudo-ch.com/12953066.html?ref=lawrencetravelstories.com) - [Transcription of the Tokyo natural-monument sign for the Ōmiya grove (Tetsudo-ch)](https://tetsudo-ch.com/12953033.html?ref=lawrencetravelstories.com) - [Tabi-mag: Ōmiya Hachimangu](https://tabi-mag.jp/tk0699/?ref=lawrencetravelstories.com) - [Tabi-mag: Wadahori Park](https://tabi-mag.jp/tk0730/?ref=lawrencetravelstories.com) - [GLTJP: Ōmiya Hachimangu ("navel of Tokyo" branding)](https://www.gltjp.com/ja/directory/item/13942/?ref=lawrencetravelstories.com) - [Bestcarweb: Ōmiya Hachimangu column ("little old men" lore)](https://bestcarweb.jp/feature/column/167511?prd=2&ref=lawrencetravelstories.com) - [Town Archives (smtrc): Kōenji area, Myōhōji and Hachiman](https://smtrc.jp/town-archives/city/koenji/index.html?ref=lawrencetravelstories.com) - [Re-house column: Meidaimae](https://www.rehouse.co.jp/relifemode/column/burarehouse/meidaimae/?ref=lawrencetravelstories.com) - [Sanpo no Tatsujin: the powder store and Meidaimae station names](https://san-tatsu.jp/articles/124600/?ref=lawrencetravelstories.com) - [Grave-visiting record: Higuchi Ichiyō](https://www.asahi-net.or.jp/~pb5h-ootk/pages/SAKKA/hi/higuchiichiyo.html?ref=lawrencetravelstories.com) - [Tabi-mag: Old Nogata water tower and the Arakawa-Tama Waterworks Union](https://tabi-mag.jp/tk0414/?ref=lawrencetravelstories.com) - [Tabi-mag: Arakawa-Tama waterworks road](https://tabi-mag.jp/tk0735/?ref=lawrencetravelstories.com) - [Tabi-mag: Inokashira-dōri](https://tabi-mag.jp/tk0734/?ref=lawrencetravelstories.com) - [Family war memoir (Takahashi Haruki), Nakano City peace archive](https://www.city.tokyo-nakano.lg.jp/kusei/danjyo/heiwa/kiroku/taikenkiroku/heiwanoinori-2.files/takahashi%5Fharuki.pdf?ref=lawrencetravelstories.com) - [Town Archives (smtrc): Keiō Inokashira Line history](https://smtrc.jp/railway/line/keio-inokashirasen/index.html?ref=lawrencetravelstories.com) - [Traffic News: the Inokashira line and the Meidaimae remnant](https://trafficnews.jp/post/57181/2?ref=lawrencetravelstories.com) - [Tetsudo-ch: Eifukuchō Station](https://tetsudo-ch.com/12952578.html?ref=lawrencetravelstories.com) - [Mapple: Nishi-Eifuku Station area (Ōmiya Hachimangu, Wadahori Park, Local Museum)](https://www.mapple.net/station/284643/spot/?ref=lawrencetravelstories.com) - [Tokyo Metropolitan Government leaflet: Horinouchi's Yakuyoke Soshi, Myōhōji](https://www.syougai.metro.tokyo.lg.jp/image/tbunka9604.pdf?ref=lawrencetravelstories.com) - [Tabi-mag: Zenpukuji River Greenway (cherry trees)](https://tabi-mag.jp/tk0729/?ref=lawrencetravelstories.com) - [Gurunavi restaurant page mentioning Myōhōji's iron gate attribution](https://r.gnavi.co.jp/ks6fcsb70000/?ref=lawrencetravelstories.com) — attribution claim only; verify. - [Suginami Ward heritage sign: Site of the Igusa town office (井荻町役場前)](https://www.city.suginami.tokyo.jp/s113/7551.html?ref=lawrencetravelstories.com) — Tier 1 municipal sign, listed here only to keep numbering; supports the Igusa-Ogikubo name compound. - [Tabi-mag: Tsukiji Hongwanji](https://tabi-mag.jp/tk0053/?ref=lawrencetravelstories.com) ### --- [Captivated by this history? 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