The area around Fukushima in the Muromachi period was part of the territory of the Date clan.

Following the establishment of the Tokugawa shogunate, Fukushima was the centre of a tenryō territory with a kokudaka of 200,000 koku.

This cadet branch of the Itakura clan continued to rule Fukushima until the Meiji restoration.

During the Bakumatsu period, with the start of the Boshin War, the domain joined the Ōuetsu Reppan Dōmei; however, its support of the Tokugawa cause was lukewarm, and upon hearing of the fall of neighbouring Nihonmatsu Castle to the Satchō Alliance, the 11th daimyō, Itakura Katsumi, surrendered the castle without a fight.

His successor, Itakura Katsusato, moved his seat from Fukushima to a small exclave controlled by the domain at Shigehara in Mikawa Province in 1869. he was later granted the kazoku title of shishaku (viscount) and served as a member of the House of Peers in the Meiji government.

He was the eldest son of Itakura Shigetane, the daimyō of Sakaki Domain in Shinano Province.

Due to an O-Ie Sōdō in 1683, Shōgun Tokugawa Tsunayoshi forced Shigetane to retire and divided Sakaki Domain between his two sons, with 30,000 koku to Shigehiro and the remaining 20,000 koku to Shigehiro’s younger brother Shigenobu.

He was the younger son of Takagi Masanobu of Tannan Dommain in Kawachi Province.

He was adopted as a posthumous son of Itakura Shigeyasu after the latter died without male heir in 1717 and was confirmed as daimyō in 1718.

The second son of Itakura Katsunori, he became daimyo on his father’s death i in 1776, and was received in formal audience by Shōgun Tokugawa Ieharu.

His tenure was marked by famine in Fukushima, and a fire which destroyed Osaka Castle while he was stationed there as a guard.

With the opening of Japan to foreign trade per the Harris Treaty of 1858, he was able to restore the domain’s finances to a strong state through encouragement of the export of silk.

However, there was much sentiment in the domain in favor of the Ōuetsu Reppan Dōmei, and after the assassination of Sara Shūzō, the arrogant envoy of the Satchō Alliance, Fukushima defected back to the pro-Tokugawa side.

However, Katsusato refused to relocate to this new territory and instead shifted his seat to a minor holding the domain held in Mikawa Province.

Itakura Katsusato joined the Ministry of Justice in 1869, and was appointed a prosecutor in the courts of Gunma Prefecture in 1873.

He became a viscount (shishaku) in the kazoku peerage system in 1884, and served as a member of the House of Peers from 1890 to 1911.