History
Kami-Kumamoto Station opened on 1 July 1891 as Ikeda Station, a Kyushu Railway stop in what was then Ikeda Village. It was renamed Kami-Kumamoto on 1 January 1901, anticipating Ikeda's eventual absorption into the city of Kumamoto in 1921. Nationalisation followed on 1 July 1907. Kumamoto Electric Railway's Kikuchi Line began service from a separate platform here in 1911, and the Kumamoto City Tram added a stop in front of the station in 1935. JR Kyushu took over the JR portion at the 1987 privatisation. The Kagoshima Main Line tracks were elevated in two stages between 2015 and 2018, and the current Eiji Mitooka-designed elevated station building opened on 14 March 2015 with the Kyushu Shinkansen project's completion.
History summarized from Japanese & English Wikipedia · last reviewed 2026-06-09.
Notes
The brick façade of the much-loved second-generation 1913 wooden station building was preserved when the line was elevated, and it now fronts the adjacent Kumamoto City Tram stop.