The stone bridges and the stone steps were cut by masons who lived here. Shiotatsu prospered as a river port on the Shiota, and along its street stand large igura-zukuri merchant houses and white-walled storehouses. Stone was among the things the river carried, and masons settled in the town in order to work it, producing bridges, steps and gravestones for the whole of the surrounding district rather than for the town alone.

The result is that stonework turns up everywhere along the street, so timber buildings and cut stone occupy the same town in a way that is unusual to see together. Shiotatsu was designated an Important Preservation District in December 2005. Ureshino Onsen is about fifteen minutes away by car, and Takeo-Onsen station is roughly twenty minutes off, which puts the Shinkansen within easy reach of a town that spent the whole of its working life dependent on a river that no longer carries anything.

A river port deals with both directions at once. Stone and timber came down from the mountains to be loaded; salt and fish came up from the sea to be unloaded; and the town sat in the middle taking a share of everything that changed hands. That is why the merchant houses here are so much larger than the population of the place would suggest. A row of substantial igura-zukuri frontages is the standing evidence that this was somewhere goods passed through rather than somewhere they were made. Handling other people's cargo has always paid better than producing your own, and the buildings show it.