History
The station opened on 11 September 1920 as Hirose Station on what was then the Railway Ministry's Nippō Main Line. It was renamed Sadowara — adopting the second-generation use of that name — on 1 July 1965, after the original Sadowara Station on the Tsuma Line was renamed Nishi-Sadowara a month earlier. Freight handling ended on 1 February 1984, and the connecting Tsuma Line was abolished on 1 December the same year. The station became unstaffed in November 1986. JR Kyushu inherited it at the 1 April 1987 privatisation, and a JR Freight terminal opened on 31 July 1991, becoming a truck-only off-rail station on 1 April 2006. SUGOCA service began on 14 November 2015.
History summarized from Japanese & English Wikipedia · last reviewed 2026-06-09.
Where the English and Japanese sources differ, this account follows the Japanese source.
Notes
A solar-panel pilot installed directly on the rails of disused Platform 1 began generating power for station operations on 8 October 2025.