Former Nagasaki Customs, Miike Branch
nature
旧長崎税関三池支署
In the late 1800s, coal from Miike Coal Mine was carried to ports in Nagasaki and Kumamoto, then exported to Shanghai, Hong Kong, and Singapore.
When Mitsui Group opened its own port at Miike in 1908 to ship coal directly to Asia, a customs branch was built on-site to handle exports. The white-and-blue wooden building, with its period-appropriate chandeliers, was later used as a warehouse and nearly lost before the city of Omuta dismantled and carefully reconstructed it in 2012 using original materials. It is now a Fukuoka Prefectural Tangible Cultural Property and part of the Miike Port UNESCO World Heritage Site. Open to the public on weekends and public holidays, it tells a compact, well-preserved story of Meiji-era industrial trade.
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