History
Kawatabi-Onsen Station opened on 19 April 1914 as Kawatabi Station (川渡駅) on the Rikuu East Line in what is now Ōsaki, Miyagi. Freight handling ended on 30 November 1971, and on 7 March 1983 parcel handling ended and the station became unstaffed under a simplified-contract operated through the on-site Kiosk. It transferred to East Japan Railway Company (JR East) on 1 April 1987 with the privatisation of Japanese National Railways. The Kiosk contract was discontinued on 7 March 1991, leaving the station fully unstaffed. It was renamed Kawatabi-Onsen Station on 22 March 1997, reflecting the nearby hot-spring town that gives the station its name.
History summarized from Japanese & English Wikipedia · last reviewed 2026-05-18.
Notes
Although the station bears the onsen's name, Kawatabi Onsen itself sits some distance away — the platform-side west waiting room used to be the railway Kiosk that doubled as the unstaffed station's ticket window until 1991.