History
Makimuku Station opened on 1 August 1955 as a new stop on the Japanese National Railways Sakurai Line, inserted between Yanagimoto and Miwa, and was the only station on the line to begin service in the Shōwa era. It was originally a passenger-only halt without on-site staff, with intermittent shifts in staffing through the 1970s and 1980s before CTC modernisation in 1984 made it permanently unattended. With privatisation on 1 April 1987 it passed to JR West, ICOCA contactless ticketing began in 2005, and from 13 March 2010 train services have been branded under the Man-yō Mahoroba Line nickname while the rail name Sakurai Line is retained.
History summarized from Japanese & English Wikipedia · last reviewed 2026-05-18.
Notes
The station sits beside the Makimuku archaeological site, an early third-century settlement that includes the Hashihaka Kofun, regarded by many archaeologists as a candidate for the tomb of Queen Himiko of the Yamatai kingdom.