In 1944, a year before the colonial period ended, a 2.5-kilometer industrial railway was built connecting a paper mill (the company has changed hands and names repeatedly over the decades; it now operates as "Paper Korea") to Gunsan Station, built specifically to transport raw materials for newsprint production. Over the years, as the paper company changed ownership, the line itself has been renamed several times — from "Bukseon Paper Railway" to "Goryeo Paper Railway" to "Sepung Railway" — and today it's known as the "Paper Korea Line."
After the railway went in, people gradually began settling along its route, and by the 1970s a proper village had taken shape here — what's now known as Gyeongam-dong Railroad Village. Houses crowd tightly along the narrow alley on either side of the tracks, close enough that when trains once passed through, their roofs nearly grazed the passing cars. No trains run here anymore, but the rails themselves remain embedded in the ground, giving visitors the odd sensation of walking directly on railway track as they stroll the alley. A village that grew up almost as a byproduct of industrial infrastructure has, nearly 80 years later, become both a piece of Gunsan's modern heritage and one of its most photographed spots.