History
Hanawa Station opened on 31 December 1912 as a stop on the privately owned Ashio Railway, which served the Ashio copper mine. The line was nationalised on 1 June 1918, joining the Japanese Government Railways' Ashio Line. Hanawa was made unstaffed on 1 October 1970, passed to JR East at the 1 April 1987 privatisation, and on 29 March 1989 was transferred to the third-sector Watarase Keikoku Railway when JR's Ashio Line was converted to the present Watarase Keikoku Line. The single remaining track and platform replaced the earlier two-track island arrangement during JNR-era rationalisation.
History summarized from Japanese & English Wikipedia · last reviewed 2026-05-18.
Notes
Hanawa is the birthplace of children's poet Ishihara Wasaburō, whose lyrics for Usagi to Kame ("The Hare and the Tortoise") play as the station's arrival jingle.