Itohara Kinenkan (Itohara Memorial Museum)

Itohara Memorial Museum is an archival museum displaying materials handed down by the Itohara family, a noble family that rose to new heights of prosperity through iron manufacturing in the Edo period. Within the Itohara family estate, which is inside the museum grounds, is an Izumo-style garden that incorporates the natural forest as part of its design. Additionally, Senshin-no-michi, a walking path through the forest where the wild flowers and grasses of Okuizumo grow, is also open to the public, and taking in these sights in combination serves to conjure up an image of the type of lives the ironmasters of old lived. The museum has been visited by many literary masters, and has also been used as a location for movies. The museum’s collection is also of exceptional historical and artistic quality, and includes materials and ancient documents relating to tatara, (a method of ironmaking), furniture handed down by the Itohara family, folk materials such as furnishings, as well as works of art and so on.