Museum Tsuru

Museum Tsuru, built in 1999, traces the history of the Tsuru area from Jomon settlement more than 10,000 years ago through its sixteenth-century prominence as a castle town. Exhibits cover the prosperous silk trade of the Edo period and the five-month visit of haiku poet Matsuo Basho in 1683. The centerpiece of the collection is one of the city's yatai festival floats, hand-pulled wooden carts used in the annual Hassaku Festival each September 1st, with curtains painted by nineteenth-century artists including Katsushika Hokusai. The museum also hosts a rotating display of works by local contemporary painter Makoto Masuda, whose canvases focus on everyday life in the region.