Baxianshan Forestry District

Baxianshan Forestry District was one of three state-run forestry operations of the Japanese colonial era, alongside Alishan and Taipingshan (太平山). Colonial officials identified the cypress stands above the Dajia River (大甲溪) while campaigning against Taiwanese Indigenous communities in the 1910s, and the railway line constructed to reach the timber also carried police into Tayal territory.

Limited funding and difficult ground produced a transport system more intricate than those of its two peers: a lowland railway running east from Fengyuan via Dongshi from 1927, a line up the river valley to Kurasu, and mountain tramways and aerial cableways above that. Wartime demand strained the more accessible stands, but cutting continued under the ROC, and by the mid-1950s post-war output had surpassed everything felled during the Japanese colonial era. A natural disaster closed the railway in 1958, after which timber came out by road until production ended in 1963.