History
Murayama Station opened on 23 August 1901 as Tateoka Station, on the Ōu South Line of the government railway (later Japanese National Railways), with the Yamagata–Tateoka section. On 21 October 1901 the line was extended to Ōishida. The 12 October 1909 line-name standardisation made it a station of the Ōu Main Line. The first generation station building entered service on 18 April 1936 with a completion ceremony on 3 May, and a footbridge was added in late March 1962. Freight handling ended on 1 August 1976 and parcel handling on 14 March 1985. The station passed to JR East on 1 April 1987 at the JNR privatisation. On 4 December 1999, with the extension of the Yamagata Shinkansen to Shinjō, the station was renamed Murayama and the present elevated station building entered service. Operations were outsourced on 1 April 2016 with the Murayama stationmaster and assistant stationmaster abolished. Shinkansen e-Ticket service began on 14 March 2020 and Touch de Go! Shinkansen on 13 March 2021. Suica IC card service started on the Ōu Main Line on 16 March 2024, and the Eki-net Q-Chiket service on 1 October 2024.
History summarized from Japanese & English Wikipedia · last reviewed 2026-06-09.
Where the English and Japanese sources differ, this account follows the Japanese source.
Notes
The station was originally named Tateoka after the central district of the former Tateoka Town. Even after Murayama City was created in 1954, the station name did not change; it was finally renamed Murayama at the city's request in 1999 to match the city name when the Yamagata Shinkansen was extended to Shinjō. The previous wooden station building had exits only on the east side; when the new elevated station building was constructed, exits were added on both east and west sides.