Kema Sakuranomiya Park

This guide to Kema Sakuranomiya Park in Osaka traces the Yodo River's destructive flooding in 1896, when the Meiji government tore up the cherry trees lining its banks and rebuilt the whole river system, burying a lock and floodgate into the water. The lock, brick reinforced with granite at every stress point, could raise and lower boats between the river's two different water levels, while a second structure tamed the flood surges. That original Meiji-era machinery still stands nearby, even after the city installed modern replacements downstream in 1974.