Joan Bridge

Joan Bridge crosses the Tosabori River and links Kita ward and Nishi ward in Osaka. Yodoya Joan paid for it out of his own fortune, though a bridge called Tanabaya bashi is said to have stood on the same spot before it. The Yodoya kept their main house in Okawacho, now in Chuo ward, worked hard on the development of Nakanoshima, and were timber merchants known in the late 17th century as the richest merchants in Japan. What is now Nakanoshima 4 to 6 chome was originally called Joancho, land developed by Yodoya Joan. In the Edo period the area was lined with kurayashiki, the warehouse residences of the domains, and merchants seem to have built the bridges themselves in order to move goods. During the First Urban Planning Project, which started in Taisho 10 (1921), a three span Gerber type steel girder 11.4 m wide was put up and the bridge became a modern one. After the war a heavy, solid looking steel girder bridge of almost the same width was newly built on the downstream side, and that is how the bridge stands today.

Translated from the Osaka Prefecture and Osaka City tourist listings (観光施設一覧, CC BY 4.0).