Kintai Bridge - History

History

After Iwakuni Castle was completed in 1608 by Kikkawa Hiroie, the first lord of Iwakuni Domain, a series of wooden bridges were built. However, most of them were destroyed by floods several times before the construction of the iconic Kintai Bridge. Afterwards, Kintai Bridge was built by the third lord, Kikkawa Hiroyoshi in 1673. The new stone piers replaced the old wooden ones. Though thought to be flood-proof; the bridge was destroyed by a flood the next year. As a result, the stone piers were redesigned for greater strength, and a special tax was created to maintain the bridge. This maintenance involved periodic rebuilding of the bridge: every 20 years for 3 spans in the middle, every 40 years for 2 spans connecting to the riverside. Consequently, the bridge remained undestroyed for 276 years, until washed away again by flooding from typhoon "Kijia" in 1950. It had been in a weakened state at the time, due to the fact that the Japanese had stopped maintaining the bridge during World War II, and that the year before the typhoon, a large amount of gravel was taken by the US Military Force from the river around the bridge to expand the US Marine Corps Air Station in Iwakuni, strengthening the flow of the river. In 1953, the bridge was reconstructed similarly to the original, using metal nails made from the same tatara iron as the Katana to increase its durability. Between 2001 and 2004, all five bridge girders were restored for the first time in 50 years.