was born on December 13, 1874, in
Chiran,
Kagoshima Prefecture. As
doctoral graduate of
LMU Munich and the
Institute of Infectious Diseases in Japan, Miyahara owned clinics in
Kagoshima City and
Tokyo, and briefly worked at as the ophthalmology director. In 1927, Miyahara opened a clinic in Taichung on the banks of the
Lu River. At the time, it was the largest eye clinic in the city. Miyahara continued to operate the clinic until the end of the
Japanese occupation of Taiwan in 1945, where he returned to Japan; the building was then used by the . Wanting to move to a bigger building but lacking the funds to do so, the bureau came to an agreement with local businessman Zhang Ruizhen (張瑞楨): Zhang would finance the construction of the new expansion in exchange for the old building. The bureau moved to its new location in 1959, near the current . Afterwards, the building was occupied by a wide range of tenants, including a clinic for
sexually transmitted infections, a
cram school, a dumpling restaurant, a
hairdresser, two taxi and bus dispatch companies, and more. After several disagreements, Zhang forcefully evicted the tenants in 1964, and in 1970 the building was used as an office for the newspaper
Taiwan Daily. The building sustained heavy damage in the
1999 Jiji earthquake and the
2008 Typhoon Kalmaegi, and after the typhoon, the building was in ruins and abandoned. After the success of Miyahara Ice Cream, the Dawncake group also refurbished the nearby Fourth Credit Union, a former bank, in a similar manner. == Architecture ==