Luodong Forestry Culture Park, Luodong Township, Yilan County, Taiwán

The forestry industry is an essential part of Luodong. In the past, it was the Taiping Forest Area that provided impetus for the town’s growth. The Luodong Forestry Culture Park was formerly used as Taipingshan’s Luodong Branch, equipped with sawmills, lumber yards, an agency office, and workers’ dormitories. Today, the culture park still reserves a complete set of old industry facilities, early village buildings, storage units and transport machinery – they are the living artefacts of Taipingshan’s forestry past. With the development of the Taipingshan Forest Area, sometime later Luodong emerged as a timber city and the industrial and commercial hub of Yilan.

Taipingshan’s forestry industry began in 1905, with the Forestry Agency of Japan drawing plans to harvest the area’s native cypress forests. A dragging track was built by laborers to pull logs up to a timber processing ground by the Duowang River. The log would then be transported out of town through the Langyan River. In 1921, the agency purchased a railway from the Taiwan Sugar Factory and adapted it for transporting timber. The railway was 36.95km long, stretching from the timber processing ground to Tiansongpi, Waiziwai, and Zhulin Station. From then on, felling of trees was carried out on an immense scale and such continued for 68 years. Taipingshan stood alongside Alishan and Bahsienshan as the three largest forest areas during the Japanese Occupation, and its scale of felling was the greatest of all.

The government restructured related policies in 1982 and the forestry industry started to decline. Taipingshan also ceased to fell trees. Between the years of 1994 and 2001, the Third Luodong Town Urban Planning Review demarcated the Luodong Forest Area as a “special forestry industry culture site.” In 2004, the Forestry Bureau unveiled a plan to create the Luodong Forestry Culture Park. In 2009, the park was officially opened to the public. In fact, since in 2004, the Ministry of Culture has successively listed Japan’s agency office, director’s residence, laborers’ club, old vehicle inspection garage, staff dormitory, fortress, and log storage pool as the country’s historical assets. In 2012, the whole site was listed as a cultural landscape area.

Epic Taiwan Culture & Adventure Route © Monika Newbound

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