The history of Hashima Island reads like a chronology of changes in Japan's energy policies from the Meiji Period to modern times. For centuries the people living on Takashima, a large island near Hashima, are said to have collected coal from exposed beds and used it as a household fuel. They called it goheita after the man by the same name who, according to local legend, stumbled on coal's combustible properties by inadvertently lighting a bonfire on the black rock.