1chan was a niche, train-themed bulletin board, founded by “thatdog” on November 20, 2003. It was mostly historically significant for hosting a translation of the Futaba imageboard script that 4chan forked. The website unofficially shutdown around July 21, 2024.

On November 20, 2003, “thatdog” launched 1chan with a total of four boards: “japan” (/j/),¹⁾ “monorail” (/c/), “usa” (/u/),²⁾ and “crash” (/c/).³⁾ 1chan used Futabally and eventually made the source code public around December 22, 2003. A few months later, 1chan went offline around July 2004, presumably to deter traffic from 4chan's two-month shutdown, and announced that Futabally was no longer in active development.

It was eventually announced that 1chan would return in Spring 2005,⁴⁾ though it ended up being delayed to June 27, 2005. This time, 1chan had a singular /rail/ board and a feedback textboard, which used Wakaba and Kareha respectively, and subsequently joined the Wakachan coalition in the process.⁵⁾ There were plans to add more boards, but it appears that this idea was abandoned.

After a decade online, 1chan disabled posting on May 4, 2016.⁶⁾ Behind the scenes, “thatdog” had intended to retire and planned to sell 1chan, resulting in a three-way bid war between “Tex”, “Mike”, and “Ham549”.⁷⁾ During this time, 1chan had a refuge on the infamously unstable “8chan.pl” website, but news of their closure and refuge didn't appear on the website until July 1, 2016 and July 4, 2016 respectively.⁸⁾

The bid concluded with 1chan linking to Railchan on July 23, 2016, meaning “Tex” and “Mike” won the bid,⁹⁾ and they later took the original “1chan.net” domain by October 2, 2016.¹⁰⁾ This time, 1chan used Vichan, though they later had issues and temporarily used Lainchan¹¹⁾ before abandoning Tinyboard forks altogether for TinyIB on August 27, 2019 and gave up on importing.¹²⁾

However, the years have not been so kind. Due to its antiquated status, 1chan became a target for Soyjak Party raids on October 4, 2021,^13)14)15) so they briefly enforce moderator-approved thread creation. This occurs several more times. Without warning, 1chan went offline around July 21, 2024. The exact reasoning is unclear, but one would have to presume that it might have to do with raids or election season.¹⁶⁾

• Their current administrators appear to be “Mike !SHO3I1wLbc” and “Tex !S0C7KLz8n.”.
• In archived pages of 1chan's boards from 2003, you may notice that the board footer shows Yotsuba instead of Futabally. The reason should obvious be considering 1chan's involvement with 4chan.
• 1chan's /rail/ board under Wakaba had reached 133,089 posts over the course of 11 years or so. This was reset twice when they switched over to Vichan and TinyIB.

• 1chan - The front page of 1chan.