The shortest and clearest story in this series is here. A building became a first, was ruined by a railway, turned into a restaurant run by people from another country, and disappeared.
1888 — the first
Daebul Hotel, built in 1888, was Korea’s first Western-style hotel Fact. It went up after the 1883 opening of Incheon port and was run by the Japanese shipping merchant Hori Hisataro Fact. Why a treaty port needed a hotel is simple: anyone arriving by ship had to spend a night in Incheon before going on to Seoul Estimate.
1899 — the railway
Then that premise collapsed. When the Gyeongin Line between Incheon and Noryangjin opened in 1899, a journey of over twelve hours by ox cart fell to about an hour and forty minutes by train Fact. The reason to stay the night was gone. As lodging declined after the line opened, the hotel closed in 1907 Fact. Korea’s first Western-style hotel did not last twenty years.
1918 — different guests
The building remained and its use changed. In 1918 Chinese proprietors including Roe So-jeong bought the hotel and opened Junghwaru, a Beijing-cuisine restaurant Fact. The layer of Chinese settlement from Ep.3 meets this building here. Junghwaru ran until the early 1970s, after which the building was let as rooms until it was demolished in 1978 Fact.
Why this story matters
This one building’s record summarises the whole district. A port opens and firsts appear; faster transport makes those firsts useless; migrants fill the empty space; and finally it is torn down Estimate. It is also the most dramatic case of the problem from Ep.4 — the current sign versus the original use. And the question has not ended: Ep.9 shows today’s version.