Happy 100 years, Cordova

DIXIE LAMBERT and MARTIN MOE

May 02, 2008 at 10:12AM AKST

For The Cordova Times

We’ve made it. Cordova is officially 100 years old as of today, May 1. Reaching this moment has not been easy.

Some nay-sayers said we’d never get here, that our town would dry up and fade away, becoming a ghost town like Katella.

"The last one to leave town, please turn out the lights," has been said over and over again, and yet the lights are still on. We’re still here, and Cordova is far from being a ghost town.

Cordova is not the bustling seaport that was once her aspiration. Cordova is no longer the razor clam capital of the world as she was before the 1964 earthquake. She no longer has the multi-million dollar herring industry she enjoyed before the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill.

The population has dropped from more than 2,500 year-round residents in the ’80s to just 1,800 now. Empty spaces in the downtown blocks are mute reminders of the thriving stores that were lost to fire and neglect.

The number of canneries has dropped by more than 50 percent, and the number of air taxis operating out of Cordova has been slashed to just three single-operator businesses; both giving sad testament to the changes in the fishing industry.

Buildings on First Street that were once occupied by mercantile businesses and rooming houses are now filled with service-oriented businesses and not-for-profit corporations. Our old-timers are disappearing one by one, and with them, our links to our early years.

Does all this mean Cordova is a dying town? Absolutely not! Cordovans are adapting and Cordova is heading in a new direction. Ecotourism is the new buzzword as Cordova is being promoted as one of the last pristine frontiers in America.

Every May, the shorebirds and bird watchers flock to Cordova to stand in the rain and the mud; one group getting a much-needed break and nourishment for their bodies and the other for their souls.

Every summer, sports fishermen and bears make their way upstream along following the salmon. Every fall, hunters stalk the mighty moose and elusive deer to fill their freezers for the winter.

Cordova is no longer a sleepy, quiet town in the winter because those adventurous spirits who climb out of helicopters and ski down the magnificent mountain slopes surrounding her have discovered her.

Those people who are truly the hardiest and devoted to Cordova have remained behind to see her through all the changes that have occurred in the past century. Some of them are becoming her "new" old-timers.

They are charged with remembering those who were linked to Cordova’s past and with raising the children of her future. They are now her links between the old and the new Cordova.

It’s time to celebrate Cordova and her people.

Come to the town picnic at 1 p.m. on Sunday, May 4. First Street (Main Street) in downtown Cordova will be filled with delicious food – barbequed red salmon, smoked black cod, halibut and many other Cordova specialties. Enjoy exciting games, pulsating music and dancers, interesting historic exhibits and all-around fun.

After the picnic, make your way up the street to the historic Masonic building and join your neighbors for an old-time Cordova pie social. Eat ice cream and scrumptious homemade pies while enjoying some literary entertainment.

Dixie Lambert and Martin Moe are co-chairmen of the Centennial committee.