Tashima's Store

This site was home to one of Townsville’s earliest and most successful Japanese businesses. Beginning as the Yamato Company in the late 1890s, it was taken over by Yoshimatsu Tashima around 1905, and was known as Y. Tashima Wholesale and Retail.

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Yoshimatsu and his wife, Kame Tashima, were respected business people who transformed the store into a local institution. Arriving from a merchant family in Wakayama, Japan, they sold a wide range of Japanese goods. Their success was so great that by the mid-1910s, the Tashima Company had expanded to Brisbane, Sydney, and Melbourne. Kame Tashima was actively involved in the business, providing advice to customers especially in the ladies’ section of the store. Both she and Yoshimatsu were respected business people in Townsville.

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When Yoshimatsu Tashima moved his headquarters to Brisbane in 1922, the store was taken over by Torajiro Mayeshiba and renamed Fujiya. It continued selling Japanese textiles and curios until tragedy struck in March 1924, when the building was destroyed by fire.

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Despite holding salvage sales and reopening, the Mayeshiba family returned to Japan shortly after. The business, after being managed briefly by others, was passed to the Araki Company in 1929 and continued as Fujiya until it finally closed around 1933, ending a decades-long history of Japanese enterprise at this location.