Mr.Ichibe'e Furukawa's original name was Kimura Minosuke. He was born on March 16th, 1832 in Tokyo as the second son. His family ran a Tofu store, But it fell into hard time leaving them poor off. Because of these hardships, Ichibe'e seemed to value money. When he was six years old, his mother passed away.To help his family, he sold tofu by blowing a bugle. After that, he went to his uncle's house in Morioka. There, he changed his name from Minosuke to Kosuke.Later he was adopted into a family acquaintance of his uncle, the Furukawa's, and he changed his name from Kosuke to Ichibe'e.
In those days, thousands of people gave up digging for copper from the Ashio copper mine. However, Ichibe'e thought he could get much copper there because it was a very famous copper mine in Japan.
In 1877, he bought the Ashio copper mine and started to dig. All his efforts were rewarded ; he found a big bed of ore in 1884. which led the way to the mine's quick development and its place as a leader of Japan's modernization.
Remains of the Kodaki Mine
