Nio-Mon Temple Gate was a c.1600 Japanese building from Hitachi Province first exhibited at the 1904 World's Fair in St. Louis, Missouri."Nio-Mon, or Temple Gate," Bulletin of the Pennsylvania Museum, vol. 4, no. 13 (January 1906). Following the fair, it was purchased and relocated to Fairmount Park. Also known as the "Japanese Pagoda", the area surrounding it was landscaped with a Japanese garden and lotus pond in 1909, funded by John T. Morris. A fire completely destroyed the Temple Gate on the evening of May 6, 1955,Kenneth Finkel, "A Story of Stewardship," The Philly History Blog, October 7, 2015. and thereby, as fate would have it, creating an ideal site for Shofuso.Charles A. Evers “Nio-mon – The Japanese Temple Gate in Fairmount Park” – Historic Guide to Philadelphia & Japan, pp. 29-32.
