On September 28, 1949, the Hiroshima Atomic Bomb Reference Room was opened in the Central Community Center in Motomachi, Hiroshima. This would later lead to the opening of Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum on August 24, 1955. The first director of the museum was Shogo Nagaoka, who recovered approximately 1,700 A-bomb artifacts from the rubble of the A-bomb desert.