History
Yanagihara Station opened on 28 June 1926 under the Nagano Electric Railway, and became a Nagano Dentetsu station after a merger on 30 September 1926. Freight handling was abolished on 1 April 1968. Between November and December 2007 the platform was raised and a slope was installed, and on 19 March 2012 the station building was rebuilt. The station was made fully unstaffed on 1 October 2019, although staff are still posted weekday evenings for a temporary fare-collection arrangement.
History summarized from Japanese & English Wikipedia · last reviewed 2026-05-22.
Notes
An automatic on-platform announcement system was installed in 2007, and the original station nameboards from the older building have been preserved inside the rebuilt 2012 station. Yanagihara was once known for irises that bloomed in late May on the station grounds, but they have not been replanted since 2011 after a Nagaden Wellness day-service facility was built on the site. Yanagihara is also one of the Nagaden bus/train transfer points, although the designated transfer stop is Yanagihara-Chūō on National Route 18 rather than the station forecourt.