---
title: Old Hachiman Post Office
url: https://karigurashijourney.com/en/notes/old-hachiman-post-office/
lang: en
journey: https://karigurashijourney.com/en/episodes/omihachiman/
---

# Old Hachiman Post Office

A little of each town’s story　/　Omihachiman, Shiga

A two-story wooden Western-style building designed by William Merrell Vories and completed in 1921. It served as a post office until 1960, then stood empty for years until the NPO Hitotsubu no Kai restored it, rebuilding the Spanish-style front entrance that had been removed. A nationally registered tangible cultural property, it is now a gallery and event space, open mainly on weekends.

8 Nakayamachi-naka, Omihachiman, Shiga

## This moment in the journey: A town straight out of a period drama

Omihachiman, in Shiga Prefecture, is a town where the houses of the Omi merchants, built from the last years of the Edo period into the Meiji era, still stand in orderly rows. White-walled storehouses line the canal, and roofed boats drift slowly along the water.

Walking along the canal, past storehouses perched on stone walls, I came to the old Hachiman Post Office, designed by William Merrell Vories and built in 1921: cream-colored walls and an arched entrance. The whole town felt like the set of a period drama.

![The old Hachiman Post Office with its arched entrance](https://karigurashijourney.com/img/omihachiman/s14-1200.jpg)
- Sources: http://www.omi8.com/spot/detail_1014.html
- Sources: https://tabi-mag.jp/sg0407/

Read this scene in the full journey: https://karigurashijourney.com/en/episodes/omihachiman/