History
Kishi Station is the terminus of the Wakayama Electric Railway Kishigawa Line in Kishigawa-chō Kōdo, Kinokawa, Wakayama (station number 14). It opened on 18 August 1933 as a Wakayama Railway station when the line was extended from Itakiso to Kishi. After the 1957 and 1961 mergers it became a Nankai station, and on 1 April 2006 it became a Wakayama Electric Railway station when Nankai transferred the Kishigawa Line; the same day, the station was made unstaffed, the ticket window closed, and the platform ticket machine removed. On 5 January 2007 the station kiosk's calico cat 'Tama' was appointed Station Master, becoming an internet sensation; she was promoted to Super Station Master in January 2008, to Ultra Station Master of all 14 Kishigawa Line stations in January 2014, and after dying of heart failure aged 16 on 22 June 2015 was given a Shinto funeral as a Wakayama Electric Railway company funeral. The cat-themed second-generation Tama Museum Kishi Station building, designed by Eiji Mitooka, opened on 4 August 2010.
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
After the original stationmaster cat Tama died in 2015, succession passed first to Nitama (inaugurated 11 August 2015 as 'Tama II'), then to Yontama (in addition to her own post at Itakiso, deputy-stationmastering on Wednesdays and Thursdays from January 2018). The 2010 cat-faced station building was designed by Eiji Mitooka, who also designed the Strawberry/Toy/Tama-themed Series 2270 trains.