Hakone 1890s
Rural Road

A beautiful view on a rural road near Sanmaibashi (三枚橋) in Yumoto (湯本), Hakone.

The photographer (Nobukuni Enami) has caught the attention of a group of children, women, farmers and travelers standing on the road. They are clearly very curious.

Located in Kanagawa Prefecture, not too far from Yokohama, Hakone was—and still is—a popular spa resort. Sanmaibashi was a wooden bridge that crossed the river Hayagawa (早川). It was an important stage on the Tokaido, connecting Odawara with Hakone.

This image, numbered 20, is one of a series of 46 photographs¹ that Nobukuni Enami shot in the Hakone area. There is another photograph by Enami titled Sanmaibashi with the number 21:

see current map

The Google Map shows the location of the current Sanmaibashi bridge. I have not yet been able to locate the actual spot where this photograph was taken. Reliable suggestions are extremely welcome.

Notes

¹ After I wrote this article, the world’s foremost Enami specialist, Rob Oechsle, contacted me on December 9, 2010 with some additional information: Enami’s HAKONE & MIYANOSHITA view series from the 1890s was numbered from 1 through 40, plus 302, 303, 304, 305a and 305b (Ashi-no-Ko lake panorama), and 308.

² Rob Oechsle used to run T-Enami.org, a site with an enormous amount of information on Nobukuni Enami. The site is no longer online, but can be accessed through the Internet Archive. Rob’s flickr account also contains lots of information on Enami.

Published July 30, 2008
Updated November 25, 2021 11:23 AM