The Jiji line opened in 1922 for an entirely industrial purpose: hauling construction materials to a hydroelectric power plant being built at Sun Moon Lake. Trains soon carried wood, bananas, and passengers as well, and the little branch line became a lifeline for communities strung along the foothills of central Taiwan. Banana exports peaked around 1930, with Jiji serving as the collection point for fruit grown throughout the region. The original station proved too small for the traffic, so in 1933 a new building rose in its place, framed in cypress and designed in the restrained Japanese colonial style. In 1927, portions of the railway had been sold to the Japanese government, but the line continued serving local needs through every change of administration.

At 1:47 a.m. on 21 September 1999, the Jiji earthquake struck central Taiwan with a magnitude of 7.3. The quake killed over 2,400 people and leveled entire neighborhoods across Nantou County. Jiji station was heavily damaged, its cypress frame cracked and buckled. For many communities, the earthquake erased landmarks that had defined their sense of place for generations. But Jiji's residents chose to rebuild the station in its original style rather than replace it with something modern. When it reopened in 2001, tiles were added to the roof and the cement floor was repaired, but the building's essential character remained intact. Inside, a pre-war telephone and safe still occupy their original positions, quiet witnesses to the decades.

The Jiji line had already been reinventing itself before the earthquake. When proposals to shut it down emerged in 1986, local residents pushed back hard enough to save it. By 1994, the line had rebranded as a tourist railway, trading freight revenue for sightseeing traffic. The strategy worked. Today the Jiji line is Taiwan's longest branch line and one of its most popular heritage railways, drawing visitors who come to ride the slow trains through terraced foothills and visit the small towns along the route. The station itself has become a destination, surrounded by shops selling dried fruit and anchored by an old steam locomotive and a military tank donated by the Ministry of National Defense, parked beside the tracks like sentinels from a different era.

Jiji station inspires the kind of loyalty that transcends practical transportation. When a beloved cat station attendant named Longjiaosun was laid off in June 2023 due to upcoming renovations, fans flooded the town office with messages of protest. In May 2024, much of the Jiji line closed for tunnel expansions, and an inflatable leopard cat was erected outside the station to welcome guests during the hiatus, a playful nod to the endangered species found in the surrounding hills. The station is classified as a historic building by the Bureau of Cultural Heritage, and though it remains owned by the Taiwan Railway Corporation, the town office maintains and operates it. Jiji is proof that a building can become a character in a community's story, not just a backdrop to it.