Former Honjin: Home of Takeuchi Gozaemon
This building was originally Kinomoto-juku’s honjin, an inn that served traveling daimyo lords and other prestigious guests who passed through the area. The inn was owned by the Takeuchi family. In the mid-nineteenth century, the Takeuchi family started making and selling medicine in addition to running the honjin. During the Meiji period (1868–1912), Takeuchi Gozaemon (dates unknown), the twenty-second family head, earned a pharmacist’s license. Although the Takeuchi family pharmacy is now in a different building, their approximately 170-year-old family business continues today.
To the Right: Kyoto; to the Left: Edo
This inscribed stone marker is a reproduction of the signpost that once stood at this crossroads. The Hokkoku Kaidō Road continued southwest, toward Kyoto, and the Hokkoku-waki Ōkan Road went west, toward Edo (now Tokyo).
Inuzakura Tree
This large inuzakura tree is all that remains of a rest area where travelers would stop to wash their feet and their horses’ bridles in a nearby stream. According to legend, the powerful daimyo Toyotomi Hideyoshi (1537–1598) buried his horse here. Hideyoshi stuck his whip into the soil as a grave marker, and it is said to have sprouted into this inuzakura tree.