History
Rifu Station opened on 4 January 1894 as an intermediate stop on the Nippon Railway main line from Iwakiri to Ichinoseki, established after a local benefactor donated the land. It was originally a fifth-class station handling local passengers and the export of rice and Rifu pears. During the Pacific War a new "sea line" was opened on 15 November 1944 via Rikuzen-Sannō to bypass the steep grade through Rifu, and on 1 July 1962 the section beyond Rifu to Matsushima was withdrawn, leaving Rifu as the terminus of a 4.3-kilometre branch. The Iwakiri-Rifu section was electrified at 20 kV AC on 2 October 1978, and a second platform was reinstated in 2002 to handle 2002 FIFA World Cup crowds at the nearby Miyagi Stadium.
History summarized from Japanese & English Wikipedia · last reviewed 2026-06-09.
Where the English and Japanese sources differ, this account follows the Japanese source.