History
Akayu Station opened on 21 April 1900 as the temporary terminus of the government-built Ōu South Line extending north from Yonezawa. On 15 February 1901 the line was pushed further north to Kaminoyama and the station became an intermediate stop, and from October 1909 it formed part of the Ōu Main Line. The Nagai Light Railway connected here on 26 October 1913, transferring to the third-sector Yamagata Railway as the Flower Nagai Line on 25 October 1988. JR East took over on 1 April 1987. A new east-side building designed by Edward Suzuki, themed on a paraglider, was completed on 14 July 1993 and won several design awards. The Yamagata Shinkansen has stopped here since 1 July 1992.
History summarized from Japanese & English Wikipedia · last reviewed 2026-05-18.
Notes
The east-side station building, modelled on a paraglider canopy, has no internal columns — its arched roof is carried entirely by external supports — and won a MITI Good Design Award in 1995.