Cordova, Iowa 2010
Cordova, Iowa Train Station 2010
This story really isn’t much news but more interest. As many know Lake Red Rock is very low right now as they are checking and maintaining the dam. A friend of mine and I took off for some photo opportunities around the area.
As many a traveler in the area may know, you could see an old bridge poking out of the water at Lake Red Rock from time to time if the water levels were right. With such a low level even more of the old road is exposed, and we were able to talk a walk into history of sorts.
From the lowered level, it exposed some area’s not seen often since the lake was finished in 1969. This area is of a town known as Cordova, Iowa. Yes there is now a park and the observation tower named the same, but many people might not have known that this town was basically right below the water level just off this park area.
Change happens, life moves on. But it’s good to stop and remember things from time to time, so I will give a description of the town of Cordova as was printed in an early History of Marion County.
This is a small station on the Wabash Railroad in the southwestern part of Summit Township, about a mile east of the Town of Red Rock. It was surveyed by N. J. Watkins on December 16, 1887, for Ellison R. and Nancy T. Wright, and the plat was filed with the county recorder on the 25th of the following May. Four streets—Hickory, Black Oak, Walnut and West—run north and south, and Maple and Locust streets run east and west. The original plat shows twenty-eight lots. Cordova has never grown to any considerable proportions. It has a general store, a post office, a grain elevator and a few residences and does some shipping.
The remains of the town have been under Lake Red Rock since 1969, and as far as I can tell the only marker of the town that remains is this concrete loading ramp that was located at the train station. If I remember, I will give some history to the namesake of Lake Red Rock not week. It’s the perfect story for this time of year.
This concrete base is all that remains of the Rail Road Crossing Signal for the Wabash Railroad that stopped in Cordova, Iowa
Remains of loading dock at Cordova, Iowa train station
