The Skyless Mercery Street
With the founding of “Changhua Eki” in 1905 under Japanese colonial rule, Changhua became a point of traffic convergence, and its ease of access attracted cotton mercantile wholesale dealers. Among the various locations at which these dealers gathered and set up shops, what was then known as Beimen (see map 
), due to its proximity to the train station, was the most prosperous, and earned the name of “Mercery Street,” whose scale and success rivaled that of Taipei’s Dihua Street and Tainan’s “Datsaishi,” the other two largest mercantile distribution center of Taiwan. With the development of “Hemei Weaving” during the postwar period, Mercery Skyless Street also functioned as a convenient textile and fabric provider.
But at around 1969, a fire occurred at the bamboo market on Xiaoxi Street (located across from the Railroad Hospital; see map 
). Nearby mercantile dealers whose textile stock became defective due to the fire chose to cheaply sell off their stock, and because the price they offered were so staggeringly low business became even livelier since. One after another, mercantile dealers followed suit by offering discount prices for their mercantile stocks to stimulate business, and the wave of discounts caused a sensation throughout Taiwan, attracting the attention of even customers outside Changhua County. “A nameless fire sparked the Xiaoxi mercantile boom,” and indeed, with that fire Xiaxi’s mercantile business reached its peak in the 70s and 80s. Along with the boom of the mercantile business, garment shops, sewing shops, zipper shops, among many others, began appearing one by one, and Xiaoxi soon transformed into a sort of a factory-town whose affiliated businesses comprised one large production line. This contributed not only to the prosperity of the region, but also to the development of the local hotel business.
To make it so that business can be conducted even under inclement conditions, shops in the alleyways set up canopies that eventually blotted out the sky, hence “skyless.”
