History
Kamisakai Station opened on 6 July 1923 as a stop on the privately built Iiyama Railway between Iiyama and Kuwanagawa, in what is now Iiyama, Nagano Prefecture. The station was renamed Nozawa Onsen Station on 23 December 1934, reflecting its role as a transfer point — by ferry across the Chikuma River and then on foot — to the well-known hot-spring resort. With the line's nationalisation on 1 June 1944 it reverted to the name Kamisakai. Freight handling ended in 1970, parcel handling in 1982, and the station was destaffed in July 2006. The current waiting-room building was completed in December 2006 under JR East (privatised since 1 April 1987).
History summarized from Japanese & English Wikipedia · last reviewed 2026-06-09.
Notes
From 1934 to 1944 the station was officially named Nozawa Onsen, because passengers reached the hot-spring resort across the Chikuma River by ferry from here — a route that has long since been replaced by buses from elsewhere on the line.