History
Yahiko Station opened on 16 October 1916 on the Echigo Railway, between the station and Nishi-Yoshida (now Yoshida). It was nationalised on 1 October 1927, ended goods handling on 25 July 1960, and passed to JR East at the 1 April 1987 privatisation. A Midori no Madoguchi was installed on 29 January 1997, Suica fare cards followed on 15 March 2008, and the building was refurbished in September 2013. The tourist information centre "AMANE" opened inside the building on 16 October 2021, and the Midori no Madoguchi finally closed on 29 February 2024. The shrine-style wooden building dating from 1916 remains in use today and is listed among Japan's "Best 100 Hometown Stations."
History summarized from Japanese & English Wikipedia · last reviewed 2026-05-18.
Notes
The wooden building, in the入母屋 shrine style with red-painted beams and rabbit motifs on its kawara tiles, dates from the 1916 opening and is one of Japan's "100 Hometown Stations." Between 1988 and 2003 Yahiko Village ran a public competition for a "Yahiko Tourism Station Master" — a young woman who handled gating, escorting trains and station promotion.