History
Tsubaki Station opened on 29 March 1935 as Kii-Tsubaki Station when the JNR Kisei West Line was extended from Kii-Tomita in what is now Shirahama, Wakayama Prefecture. The Kii- prefix was needed because the Gonō Line already had its own Tsubaki Station; after that station was renamed in 1964, this station took the simple name Tsubaki on 1 March 1965. Freight ended in July 1971 and parcels in April 1978; the station became a simple-commission stop and was unstaffed from 14 March 1985, when limited expresses first began stopping. JR West inherited it at the 1 April 1987 privatisation of JNR. The last Kuroshio stops here were withdrawn on 14 March 2015, and ICOCA support began on 13 March 2021.
History summarized from Japanese & English Wikipedia · last reviewed 2026-05-22.
Notes
The wooden station building still has a hand-painted camellia flower on its "Tsubaki Station" signboard, with real camellia trees planted around the building, and the unstaffed waiting room hangs a photograph of Uzen-Tsubaki Station on JR East's Yonesaka Line — a deliberate sibling-station tribute on the other side of the country.