Chiayi city, the starting point of the Alishan Forest Railway, flourished due to the development of forestry. Since the development began quite early, many historical sites still exist in the city, and they have become important resources for tourism.

　　According Wikipedia, Chiayi city is the first city built in Taiwan. There were several ancient names of Chiayi city, one of which was Chulo Shan, named by Hoanya aborgines; Tirosen, which was named by the Dutch; and Peach City, for its territory is peach-shaped.

　　In the year of 1661, Zheng Chenggong, chief commander of the Ming troops, successfully exiled the Dutch from Taiwan. He then established the first Han people ruled government system in Taiwan, with one highest government and two states. One of the states, Tianxing, was the former Chiayi county. In 1704, the central government of Tianxing state moved to Chulo Shan, which is the Chiayi city as of today. When the city was built, there were four gateways to the cities, one located on each of the north, west, south, and east side. Since the north gate had the largest jurisdiction in terms of area, a military base was set within Chulo city to defend the territory upper north. Chiayi north gate had then became the largest military base from north of Tainan.

　　When the First Sino-Japanese War broke out in 1894, the Qing leadership sued for peace in the next year, signing the Treaty of Shimonoseki, which allowed the Japanese to establish a colonial administration to govern Taiwan until 1945. In 1906, there was a great earthquake in Chiayi which destroyed most of the buildings in the city except the east gate. Then in 1907, the city was rebuilding along with the construction of the Alishan forest railway, and thus Chiayi city rapidly developed into the most modern and prosperous city at the time.

　　The Yun-Hsiao Houses are located in the north-east corner of the ancient Chulo city, outside the city walls. The first migrants came from Fujian Province of China, who followed Zheng Chenggong to reside in Taiwan. The Yun-Hsiao Houses are named Wen-Jiao Cuo in the Min Nan dialect.