Located in the town of Aikawa on Sado Island the Kitazawa Flotation & Power Plants are an industrial relic from the early 20th century.
By 1938 the Kitazawa flotation plant was the largest gold ore concentrator in East Asia as Japan stepped up its gold production to pay for imports following economic sanctions imposed on it by the Western powers following the Mukden Incident of 1937 in China.
During the Second World War copper was also smelted here brought from Japan's South East Asian empire.
By the 1950s gold mine operations on Sado were much reduced and the gold ore concentrator was stopped.
The brick building pictured below is a thermal power plant built in 1908 to provide power and replacing the previous steam engines. Inside the building are photographs and other exhibits on the history of Aikawa.
The Kitazawa Flotation & Power Plant is very close to the Sado Gold Mine and just across the road from the Edo Period Sado Bugyosho.
Google map of Kitazawa Flotation & Power Plants