History
Otanoshike Station (station number K50) is on the JR Hokkaido Nemuro Main Line in Kushiro, Hokkaido. It opened on 20 July 1901 as a general station of the Hokkaidō Kansetsu Tetsudō and was transferred to the state-run railway on 1 April 1905. Until the immediate postwar period the area was a major hub for Kushiro-breed army horses; once the Honshū Paper (later Ōji Paper) Kushiro mill began operating in 1959 the station became one of Hokkaido's major freight stops, handling wood chips and finished product, until rationalisation through the 1970s and 1980s ended freight handling and removed the dedicated mill siding. The present building dates to 2 October 1989 and was Japan's first station building built jointly with a city branch office (the Kushiro City Hall Otanoshike branch); its exterior is modelled on the former horse inspection station. Kushiro is on the Pacific coast of eastern Hokkaido and serves as the seat of the Kushiro Subprefecture, ranking 7th in Japan by area; the present Kushiro City was constituted on 11 October 2005 through the merger of the previous Kushiro City (1922–2005) with Akan Town and Onbetsu Town.
History summarized from Japanese & English Wikipedia · last reviewed 2026-05-25.
Notes
The current Otanoshike station building, opened in 1989, is recorded in the station article as Japan's first station building constructed jointly with a municipal branch office — pairing the JR station with the Kushiro City Hall Otanoshike branch, and shaped after the area's old cavalry-horse inspection station.