The station opened in 1931 with the completion of the last section of what is now the Ohmi Railway Main Line from Hikone to Maibara.
The western-style building with its distinctive red gambrel roof and smokestack was designated in 2013 as a national cultural asset.
The area around the station once prospered as Toriimoto-juku, a staging post on the Nakasendo highway between Edo and Kyoto, and some of the atmosphere of that period still remains.