What’s with the Million Dollar Bridge? About fifty miles up the Copper River from Cordova, a steel railroad bridge stands between two glaciers — Childs on one bank, Miles on the other — both of them calving icebergs into the river as it works. Built in 1909–10 at a cost of $1.4 million, which gave it its name, the Miles Glacier Bridge carried copper trains across one of the most hostile spots in Alaska. Engineers were told it couldn’t be done; they raised four great Pennsylvania-truss spans across the gap anyway, racing a federal deadline through sub-zero winters. The Good Friday earthquake of 1964 knocked one span off its pier, where it hung at an angle for forty years before being repaired. It still stands — the iconic landmark of Cordova’s copper age.
The bridge existed for one reason: copper. In the early 1900s some of the richest copper ore on earth was found in the mountains at Kennecott, and the Alaska Syndicate — J.P. Morgan and the Guggenheim family — set out to haul it to tidewater. They hired Michael Heney, the “Irish Prince” who had helped build the White Pass railroad, to run a line 196 miles down the Copper River to an ice-free port. Heney chose the spot, named it Cordova in 1906 after an old Spanish name for the harbor, and the town was founded in 1908 as the railroad’s ocean terminus. From 1911 to 1938, Kennecott copper rolled down the rails and onto ships bound south.
Why People Visit Cordova
Cordova rewards travelers who want the real, working edge of Alaska: a fishing fleet at the dock, glaciers and a great river delta within reach, world-class birding and salmon, and a town you have to make an effort to reach. Bring rain gear and time.
