In 1601 Tokugawa Ieyasu established a nationwide highway network radiating from Edo and designated post stations on the roads to serve the needs of travelers. Shinagawa, on the city's southwestern perimeter, was the first of these post stations on the Todaido, the most frequented route between Edo and Kyoto.

Before then, the Meguro River had been the loosely defined southern border of Edo. Avoiding the alluvial plain, which was prone to the hazards of floods and high tides, travelers often took upland routes to cross the Meguro further upstream. Back then, those uplands were sparsely populated, being dry and covered by the volcanic ash called Kanto Loam. Hence travelers crossing the bleak landscape west of Shinagawa were delighted to find a settlement of significance, which they called Togoe, meaning "the village beyond Edo." Nowadays, this old name is pronounced "Togoshi."

A woodblock print by Hasegawa Settan, done in the 1830s, depicts the Hachiman Shrine of Togoe, the village's tutelary shrine. Snuggled in a grove of pine trees and surrounded by well-tilled farm fields, the shrine seems to bask in the patronage of villagers. Thanks to effective irrigation achieved by the time Settan came along, Togoe and its neighboring villages had enjoyed something of an agricultural boom.