Bachimen Submarine Cable Landing Station

The approximate site of the Taiwan terminus of the first submarine telegraph cable linking the island to Japan, at the Bachimen (八尺門) channel on the eastern edge of Keelung harbour, facing Sheliao Island (社寮島), today known as Heping Island (和平島). The Ishigaki-Taiwan segment was laid by the cable ship Okinawa-maru (沖縄丸) in May 1897, completing a chain of cables running from Kagoshima through Amami, Okinawa, and Ishigaki. In February 1896 a party of 47 under the Provisional Taiwan Telegraph Construction Department (臨時台湾電信建設部) arrived in Keelung to string the roughly six-kilometer pole line connecting the landing point to the Keelung Post and Telegraph Office (基隆郵便電信局), working through constant rain during ongoing anti-Japanese resistance in the wake of the Yiwei War. The terminal was relocated to Tamsui in 1910 and the landing room disposed of as surplus; the channel was later rebuilt, leaving no known trace of the original structure.