History
Honkawachō Station is a Hiroden Main Line tram stop in Naka-ku, Hiroshima. It opened in December 1912 as Sakanchō Station (左官町停留場) with the Main Line extension to Koi (today Hiroden-Nishi-Hiroshima). At opening the line turned south here, crossing the old Saigoku-kaidō by a tight curve before swinging west again toward Dobashi. In 1917 the Yokogawa Line branched from here, making Sakanchō the junction. From 1943 a wartime short-cut was built to bypass the curve, opening in 1944 and shifting the Yokogawa / Main junction to Tōkaichimachi while the old southern loop was abolished. The track between Aioibashi and Tōkaichimachi was straightened in 1956. When Hiroshima City reorganised its place-names in 1965 — renaming Sakanchō to Honkawachō — the stop was renamed accordingly.
History summarized from Japanese & English Wikipedia · last reviewed 2026-05-25.
Notes
Honkawachō started life as Sakanchō in 1912 and was the original Yokogawa Line junction from 1917 until 1944, when wartime route-straightening shifted the junction one stop east to Tōkaichimachi. The stop was only renamed Honkawachō in 1965 when the city redrew its neighbourhood boundaries.