The Japanese Village

Ever since World’s Fairs presented Japanese attractions, and Luna Park at Coney Island built a Japanese Village, other parks had been copying the idea. Wonderland’s version was built by the Japanese Construction Company of New York, otherwise known as the F.U. Shuichi and Kengyu Morya Company, who built the villages at the 1901 Buffalo Exposition and the St. Louis 1904 Exposition.

The Wonderland Village featured a miniature Mt. Fuji sixty feet tall made of canvas and wood, several bridges, a torii entrance gate, Tea rooms, a traditional Japanese house, a Jiu Jitsu demonstration, and a lecture on the recently-concluded Russo-Japanese War.

Jiu Jitsu demonstration at Wonderland. “Japs” wasn’t considered a slur at the time.

Land of the Mikado show from 1908:

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