This is a historically significant photograph of Nagoya Castle because the U.S. Air Force bombed and destroyed the castle on May 14, 1945. With the exception of some paintings, the castle's contents were also destroyed in the bombing.
The castle has been rebuilt, but the buildings you see here no longer exist.
The first Nagoya castle was built in 1525. It was rebuilt in the following century, and was completed in 1612.
This photo is from an album Elstner Hilton compiled in Japan between 1914 and 1918. Elstner was my spouse's uncle.
While Uncle Elstner was pretty good about annotating the photos that required an explanation of some sort, he did not date the pictures. So all we know is they were taken between January, 1914 and December, 1918.
Japan 1914 - 1918 I own the originals of these unpublished family photos. ... As a salesman for Atkins Saw Company, Elstner Hilton traveled to the Far East to sell commercial sawmills in the early years of the 20th century. ... Elstner Hilton was my father-in-law Frank Hilton's* brother, which makes him my spouse's uncle. ... * Elstner Hilton's brother Frank Hilton compiled a scrapbook of photographs, clippings and other ephemera at Stanford University between 1907 and 1911. ... ps: I now have reason to believe that the photos of Japan may be stock photos that Uncle Elstner purchased and pasted into his album. There may be some exceptions: the images of his sister, Miriam, and photos of logging operations in the Phillippines.