History
Karikawa Station opened on 1914-08-16 as the temporary terminus of the state-run Sakata Line, extended from Kiyokawa, in what is now Shōnai, Yamagata Prefecture. It became a through station when the line reached Amarume on 1914-09-20, and was assigned to the Rikuu West Line under the route-name reform of 1917-11-01. Freight handling ended on 1970-10-01 and parcel handling on 1984-02-01. The station was made staff-less and put under a simple consignment on 1986-11-01, and it transferred to JR East at the 1987-04-01 privatisation. Construction of a new building began in late August 2021, and the replacement entered service on 2021-12-16. The line was suspended for the Takaya tunnel works from 2022-05-14 to 2026-01-16.
History summarized from Japanese & English Wikipedia · last reviewed 2026-05-18.
Notes
Karikawa hosted an Imperial train on 1947-08-16, when Emperor Shōwa's postwar tour boarded a special service that ran from this station to Shinjō.