History
Kikusui Station (number T11) is a Sapporo Municipal Subway station on the Tōzai Line in Shiroishi-ku, Sapporo, Hokkaido. It opened on 10 June 1976 with the line's inaugural Kotoni–Shiroishi segment, received an elevator on 22 March 2006, had platform-edge doors activated on 26 November 2008, and from 1 December 2024 carries the sub-name "Hoshizaki Hokkaidō Mae" on its station signs for a two-and-a-half-year period. Shiroishi-ku traces its name to ex-Sendai-domain settlers from Shiroishi Castle who, after the Boshin War, immigrated to "Mottsuki-sappu" (around present-day Shiroishi-Chūō) in 1871; per Shiroishi-ku's Wikipedia article, the Sapporo-area Hokkaido settlement of Kataura-Kojūrō's retainers gave its name to the "Shiroishi-mura" — christened from their home castle-town by the Kaitakushi official Iwamura Michitoshi — and the area was annexed by Sapporo City in 1950 and made an autonomous ward in 1972 when Sapporo became a designated city.
History summarized from Japanese & English Wikipedia · last reviewed 2026-05-25.
Notes
A small piece of Sapporo settlement lore links the station's name to the ward's pioneer story: per the Shiroishi-ku article, settlers from the original Shiroishi-mura split off in 1873 in search of more fertile land and founded "Shin-Shiroishi-mura" — the place now known as Kikusui, where the station stands today — which was then renamed Kami-Shiroishi-mura in 1874 before reuniting with Shiroishi-mura in 1902.