Found a Bridge Near Marunaka Named After a Person

While I was driving along Rinko Line for an interview, near Marunaka,

I spotted someone’s name written on a bridge! So I immediately made a U-turn ヽ(^o^)丿

Sure enough, there was the name Nishi Chogoro!

What’s more, there are two rivers side by side here, and on the neighboring river it says

Higashi Chogoro!

Which means “Nishi” and “Higashi” probably aren’t surnames, right? (^_^;)

Here it is on the map↓

The address is 3 Hamamatsubara-cho, Nishinomiya City.

“© OpenStreetMap contributors”

But I was still curious about the name, so I contacted the

Historical Records Team, Information Disclosure Division, Nishinomiya City HallWhat an amazing team to have! to see if they knew anything more about it.

“A bridge has existed here since before the Meiji Restoration, and there is a note in historical documents suggesting that the name appears to be a person’s name.” 

That was the reply I received ＼(^o^)／

So while we couldn’t find out exactly who he was or where he was from, we learned that Chogoro is very likely to have been a person’s name.

What kind of person must he have been to have his name preserved for later generations as the name of a bridge? !(^^)!

Here’s a survey