History
Owase Station opened on 19 December 1934 as the terminus of the Japanese Government Railways Kisei East Line, with the station name then read "Owashi". For about two decades it remained the line's end-of-rail, until the route was extended south to Kuki on 12 January 1957. On 15 July 1959 the line was unified as the Kisei Main Line and the reading of the station name was officially changed to "Owase". Freight handling ended on 1 February 1984 and parcel handling on 14 March 1985, and JR Central took over at privatisation on 1 April 1987. A signal-equipment fire in 2008 disabled passing facilities; service plans have since routed limited-express crossings elsewhere on the line.
History summarized from Japanese & English Wikipedia · last reviewed 2026-05-18.
Notes
Owase's wooden station building dates from 1934 — extensively renovated, but the same structure that opened the line — and the platform numbered "3" survives only as fenced-off ground where the tracks have been lifted for car parking.