History
Yokokura Station is a single-platform halt on the JR East Iiyama Line in Sakae Village, Shimominochi District, Nagano Prefecture, 46.6 km from the line's starting point at Toyono. It opened on 19 November 1925 together with the surrounding section of the private Iiyama Railway and was nationalised on 1 June 1944. Freight handling ended on 21 December 1970, parcel handling on 1 November 1982, and the station became unstaffed and simplified-commissioned on the same day. JR East inherited the station at the 1 April 1987 privatisation. The original wooden station building, damaged in the 12 March 2011 Nagano-hokubu Earthquake, was demolished and replaced; a new wooden single-storey building in a traditional minka style was inaugurated on 22 August 2011.
History summarized from Japanese & English Wikipedia · last reviewed 2026-05-24.
Notes
After JNR moved to unstaff the stop in 1982, the village contracted a local resident as stationmaster, who planted flower beds around the platform and earned Yokokura the nickname "the flower station". Although the 2011 earthquake reduced the flower beds to a building-materials yard during repairs, replanting has continued since the new station house opened.