Cordova
Chugach · USGS GNIS name record 1421215
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USGS GNIS Populated Place names in all 50 states and DC. Features in the historical extract or explicitly named historical are excluded; duplicate decision records with identical identities and coordinates are collapsed. GNIS points identify names, not legal or neighborhood boundaries, current occupancy, school attendance or a statistical population. Nearby Census places and tracts remain separately named geographies. Name completeness and currency vary; this is not a claim to include every locally used neighborhood name.
Original USGS record for Cordova ↗Dataset snapshot 2026-09-02 · Source record edited 06/07/2022 · NAD83 · approximate source location
USGS description & history
population 1,128 on SE shore of Orca Inlet, opposite Hawkins I., Chugach Mts.
Named by Michael J. Heney, builder of the Copper River and Northwestern Railroad, about 1906. A post office was established here in October 1906 (Ricks, 1965, p. 14). The town had its origin as the railroad terminus and ocean shipping port for the copper ore shipped from the Kennicott mine up the Copper River. "On April 8, 1911, Cordova celebrated 'Copper Day,' when the first trainload of copper ore, approximately 1,200 tons of it, arrived from the mines and was poured into the holds of the steamship Northwestern, bound for the smelter at Tacoma (Washington)" (Roguszka, 1964, p. 9). The name of the town was derived from the original name "Puerto Cordova," given to what is now known as Orca Bay, by Senor Don Calvador Fidalgo who visted the region in 1790.
Source notes may describe earlier conditions.Source files & checksums
SHA-256 20c96936a3ba430b345eed1c7395b6aab52875aac8e1e2905fab37b388cab381
SHA-256 45ad8d56b3bb4990ad8105cdda15ee7d2f07afd6941afe75b783f29b02723697
SHA-256 919fac887628b8547ec1b24fae319522a9481a56909c3914d1e0a2b56783147c