History
Hitachi Station opened on 25 February 1897 as Sukegawa Station on the privately-owned Nippon Railway. It became state-owned with the 1906 nationalisation and joined the newly named Jōban Line in 1909. The 1 September 1939 merger that formed the modern city of Hitachi prompted the station's rename to Hitachi on 20 October 1939. JNR's 1 April 1987 privatisation transferred it to JR East and JR Freight. Suica was activated on 16 October 2004 (Mito side only) and extended further north on 15 March 2008. An elevated station building designed under architect Kazuyo Sejima opened on 7 April 2011 and won the Brunel Award for stations in 2014, gaining the station its "station with a view of the sea" nickname.
History summarized from Japanese & English Wikipedia · last reviewed 2026-06-09.
Where the English and Japanese sources differ, this account follows the Japanese source.
Notes
From 1908 until 31 May 1960 the privately-owned Hitachi Mine electric railway connected the station to the Hitachi copper mine, hauling sulphuric acid produced by the local smelter for outbound shipping along with passenger traffic.