History
Ōkawachi opened on 27 March 1987 as a petition station between Katsuma and Suō-Kubo on the Japanese National Railways Gantoku Line, built at the request of residents of nearby Jiyūgaoka, Sachigaoka and Yumegaoka housing estates. It was unstaffed from the outset, with no station building beyond a small shelter housing a ticket machine. Just five days after opening, on 1 April 1987, the JNR privatisation placed the station under JR West. It is a single side-platform halt managed remotely from Tokuyama Station, with a 75-metre platform and a rotary on the east side serving as a small forecourt.
History summarized from Japanese & English Wikipedia · last reviewed 2026-05-18.
Notes
The Gantoku Line is the alternative inland route between Iwakuni and Tokuyama dating from the era when the present San'yō Main Line's coastal alignment did not yet exist; Ōkawachi sits in the Kumage district of Shūnan and was funded entirely on the back of three nearby housing estates rather than any pre-existing settlement.