The Shinsaibashi Bridge in Osaka’s Minami district sometime during the 1910s.
The Bridge was named after Shinsai Okada, one of four merchants who dug the Nagahori canal that flowed below the bridge.
This image shows the stone bridge which in 1909 (Meiji 42) replaced the steel bridge built in 1873 (Meiji 6).
For a photo of the steel bridge, and the history of Shinsaibashi Bridge, see Osaka 1890s • Shinsaibashi Bridge.
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Old Photos of Japan aims to be your personal museum for Japan's visual heritage and to bring the experiences of everyday life in old Japan to you.
To enhance our understanding of Japanese culture and society I track down, acquire, archive, and research images of everyday life, and give them context.
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Kjeld Duits
Reference for Citations
Duits, Kjeld (). Osaka 1910s: Shinsaibashi Bridge, OLD PHOTOS of JAPAN. Retrieved on January 23, 2026 (GMT) from https://www.oldphotosjapan.com/photos/693/shinsaibashi-bridge-1910s
James Culbertson
The current Shinsaibashi river bridge still exists….sort of. For the international Expo in the 1970’s Osaka added highways and other city improvements. The Shinsaibashi river was drained, dug out and an underground shopping center was put in (crysta nagahori shopping). The remains of the bridge were kept and put in concrete as part of the road. So people still cross the street and walk over the bridge.
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Kjeld (Author)
@James: Indeed. Thanks for sharing, James!
I actually mentioned this in an earlier article about Shinsaibashi Bridge. During the 1980s and early 1990s my head office was in Shinsaibashi and I crossed this bridge all the time. Special memories.
In those days when we saw a foreigner in the Shinsaibashi arcade we would tell each other. It was that rare!
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