History
Ōbatake Station opened on 25 September 1897 on the San'yō Railway when the route was extended from Hiroshima to Tokuyama. The line was nationalised in 1906 and renamed the San'yō Main Line in 1909. From 1921 a connecting ferry to Suō-Ōshima ran from a pier near the station; the route passed from the Yamaguchi prefectural government to JNR in 1946 and was discontinued on 2 July 1976 after the opening of the Ōshima Bridge. Freight ended in 1962, and JNR's privatisation on 1 April 1987 transferred the station to JR West. ICOCA arrived on 12 March 2022, the staffed Midori-no-Madoguchi closed on 30 September 2022, and the station was destaffed the following day.
History summarized from Japanese & English Wikipedia · last reviewed 2026-05-18.
Notes
The 2025 reconstruction of the station building uses cross-laminated timber panels factory-fabricated and assembled on site — an unusually advanced choice of method and material for a small JR West countryside station.