For a few decades Cordova was a copper town. Then, in 1938, the ore ran out, the mines closed, and the last train left. The railway was abandoned — its rails pulled up, its trestles left to the weather — and the Million Dollar Bridge carried its final load. A lesser town might have vanished with the copper. Cordova didn’t, because it had something the mountains could neither give nor take away: a river full of salmon.
People were here long before the copper. The Eyak made the Copper River Delta and this corner of Prince William Sound their home, fishing the same runs that feed the town today and trading along the coast between their Tlingit and Alutiiq neighbors. The first cannery opened on Orca Inlet in 1889 — before the railroad, before the town — proof that the fish came first and have stayed longest. Cordova’s deepest story is not copper but salmon, and the people who have always known it.
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.
