In the 1960s, the Keihin Kyuko railway company extended its rail lines south from Yokosuka down into the Miura Peninsula area .... Keikyu also built resort facilities to attract customers to ride the new rail lines .... In the small beach community of Tsukuihama, a luxury hotel called "Miura Cape Chateau" was opened in 1965, and it stayed in business until 2000 .... All gone now...
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(Article written in June 2008)
1. Beach resort led by Keihin Kyuko Railway
In the past, entry restrictions were put into place at Miura Kaigan Station due to the large number of tourists. At the time, cars traveling between the Keihin area and the Miura Peninsula were concentrated on National Route 16, and traffic jams ran from Isogo Ward through Yokosuka City. Beach huts were lined up close and close to each other, and the sand was filled with beachgoers. Beach seine fishing was also popular, mainly with families. At the time, the sandy beaches along the coast of Tokyo had almost disappeared due to reclamation, and this area became the largest beach in the Tokyo and Yokohama suburbs.
The so-called Iwato boom that began in 1958 (Showa 33) led Japan into high economic growth, and at the same time, a leisure boom arrived. Around that time, on the Miura Peninsula, Keihin Kyuko began extending its railway line south of Kurihama, and in 1963 it opened from Keihin Kurihama (now Keikyu Kurihama) to Nobi (now YRP Nobi), and in 1966 it opened to Miura Kaigan, marking the first time that a railway line had entered Miura City.
In conjunction with this, Keihin Kyuko called the area from Nobi to Miura Beach "Blue Daytona Beach" and launched a major campaign. Incidentally, Daytona Beach is a tourist destination in Florida, USA, known for its vast sandy beaches. Keihin Kyuko held the Miura Beach Festival, and in conjunction with the festival, they operated tourist trains such as the "Miura Beach Train" that ran directly from Shinagawa to Miura Beach and carried entertainers.
In terms of facilities, they also created many directly managed tourist facilities and began to develop tourism along the line. In 1965, they opened Hotel Cape Chateau on the hill behind Tsukuihama Station, in 1969 they opened a beach center facing the beach, and in 1973 they opened a field archery facility at the foot of Takeyama. In addition, in 1968 Keihin Kyuko began to tie up with Tsukuihama's tourist farm, which was developed in the 1960s, and in addition to the original mandarin orange picking, they expanded the scale of the event to include strawberry picking and potato digging. In this way, one of the prefecture's leading tourist destinations was formed from Tsukuihama to Miura Coast.
2. Changes in leisure activities and the decline of tourist destinations
After the first oil crisis in 1973, the leisure boom went into a sudden downturn. Even after the bubble economy began, leisure activities became larger and more diverse, and tourists began to easily travel to Hokkaido, Okinawa, and overseas, so the tourists who once flooded the station never returned to this area. The number of beach huts lining the coast continued to decrease year by year, and now there are less than half of them around Miura Kaigan Station. Around 2000, all the tourist facilities built by Keihin Kyuko in this area were forced to close, and the beach center has been turned into a parking lot, but nothing else is being used there.
The only "bubble-like leisure facility" that appeared in this area during the bubble period was "Maholova Minds Miura," built on a plateau overlooking Miura Kaigan. It was originally built as a luxury resort condominium, but sales were poor after the bubble collapsed, so it was restarted as a resort hotel. It offers services at a low price considering the quality of the facilities, and it seems to attract a fair number of customers due to its reasonable price. It is a conspicuous building on the flat Miura Plateau, which is mainly farmland. Recently, the area has become a commuter area using the Keihin Kyuko Line, and residential development is progressing near Miura Kaigan Station.
http://www.kana-chiri.org/chiiki/kawariyuku/Miura1.html
