The present Odawara Castle was established during the Muromachi period, although the site's roots as a fortress location stretch back some 800 years to the Kamakura era. From 1495, it came under the control of the Hōjō clan who greatly expanded its fortifications and general influence. Although the forces of Uesugi Kenshin and Takeda Shingen each laid siege to it 1561 and 1569, it failed to fall until Toyotomi Hideyoshi moved to crush the Hōjō clan in 1590. During the Edo Period it held a highly strategic position along the Tōkaidō just past the Ashigara Checkpoint at Hakone-juku. The site was abandoned following the Meiji Restoration in 1970, with many of its structures later demolished. What little survived succumbed to the Great Kantō Earthquake of 1923. The present ferro-concrete donjon dates from 1960.