was the fifty-second of the fifty-three stations of the Tōkaidō as well as the sixty-eighth of the sixty-nine stations of the Nakasendō. It is located in the downtown area of the present-day city of Kusatsu, Shiga Prefecture, Japan. History Kusatsu has been a transportation hub for east-west travel on the ancient Tōsandō and Tōkaidō highways connecting the capital of Heian-kyō with the provinces of eastern Japan from the end of the Nara period onwards. During the Muromachi period, it developed as a relay point between Kyoto and the Ise Grand Shrines. In 1422, when Shogun Ashikaga Yoshimochi made a pilgrimage to Ise, he built a palace, the "Kusatsu Goshō" in this location. Around 1568, Oda Nobunaga forced Ashikaga Yoshiaki to cede the Kusatsu area, which he viewed as strategically critical to controlling the approaches to Kyoto. Nobunaga made extensive road repairs and reconstructed the Seta Bridge. In the early Edo period, the system of post stations on the Nakasendō and Tōkaidō was formalized by the Tokugawa shogunate in 1602. Kusatsu-juku developed at the junction of these two highways as a post town from around this time. It was on the sankin-kōtai route by the Kishū Tokugawa clan and other western daimyō to-and-from the Shogun's court in Edo. Coming from Moriyama-juku, the borders of Kusatsu-juku started at the banks of the Kusatsu River and extended to the present-day Miya-chō in Kusatsu.Per the 1843 guidebook issued by the , the town had a population of 2351 in 586 houses, including two honjin, two waki-honjin, and 72 hatago. Of the two honjin, one was constructed in 1635 and stood until 1870. That honjin was later repaired and opened as a museum in 1996. Kusatsu-juku Honjin Kusatsu-juku had two honjin, both of which were owned by the Tanaka family. The head of the family always had the name of "Tanaka Shichizaemon". One of the honjin was named the "Tanaka Shichizaemon Honjin" and since the family was also in the lumber business, the second was named the "Kiya Honjin" Only the "Tanaka Shichizaemon Honjin" survives and was designated as a National Historic Site in 1949. It covers a 4719 square meter site, with a floor area of 1547 square meters. It is adjacent to the Kusatsu River on one side, and protected by moats and high walls on the other sides. The first honjin was built by the Tanaka Shichizaemon family in 1635. In June