History
Minamata Station opened on 21 July 1926 as a station on the Japanese Government Railways Kagoshima Main Line. The Yamano West Line branched here from 22 April 1934, but the successor Yamano Line was discontinued on 1 February 1988. Freight handling, including the spur to the Chisso plant, ended on 1 November 1986. The present station building was completed in 1955, and the Midori no Madoguchi ticket office opened in March 1972. JR Kyushu inherited the station on 1 April 1987. When the first Kyushu Shinkansen segment opened on 13 March 2004, the Yatsushiro-Sendai stretch was transferred to the third-sector Hisatsu Orange Railway, which now operates Minamata.
History summarized from Japanese & English Wikipedia · last reviewed 2026-05-22.
Notes
A spur once ran from this station into the Chisso chemical plant, source of the methyl-mercury contamination that gave the city its name in medical history; the freight line was abolished in 1986.