Torii-bashi Bridge

There are several reasons why Innai has so many stone bridges. One is the town's topography, with its deep valleys and fast-flowing rivers. The town's residents needed sturdy stone bridges that would not be washed away by the rivers' currents. The second reason is that the area had abundant resources of the stone needed to build these bridges that could be readily quarried. The third reason is that there were many stonemasons who possessed superior skills in building terraced rice fields and stone walls, the kinds of structures that were essential to life in the town. In particular, one master builder, Shinnosuke Matsuda, who has been dubbed the "king of stone bridges," studied the design of arched bridges in Kansai before returning to his hometown in 1897. There, he built 14 iconic stone bridges, including Torii-bashi, 11 of which still remain today. There are also a number of stone bridges built by Matsuda still standing in the nearby towns of Ajimu and Honyabakei.