History
Hakuba-Ōike Station opened on 1 December 1947 as Kawauchishimo temporary boarding point, after local residents petitioned senior railway officials, including future prime minister Eisaku Satō, then Parliamentary Vice-Minister of Transport, for a new station on the Ōito Line. It was promoted to a full station and renamed Hakuba-Ōike on 25 September 1948, taking its name from the nearby mountain lake to give it greater recognition. The station was relocated to its present site in December 1967 in conjunction with the electrification to Minami-Otari. Becoming a commissioned-operation station in 1980, parcel handling was abolished in 1983 with simultaneous withdrawal of staff. With the 1 April 1987 privatisation of Japanese National Railways the station passed to JR East, and the simplified commission ended on 1 April 2000. The November 2014 Nagano earthquake closed the line between Hakuba and Minami-Otari. The station serves Otari, Nagano Prefecture, with a single ground-level side platform.
History summarized from Japanese & English Wikipedia · last reviewed 2026-06-09.