Cordova Museum

My favorite area of Memphis has to be Cordova. A wonderful slice of history that is all free! Darlene Sawyer is an amazing woman who went to the schoolhouse as a child and is so full of knowledge. If you like history and seeing how buildings and life was like in the 1800s and 1900s, this place is for you.

Before Cordova was became an eastern extension of Memphis, it was its own place; a cute little town centered around a tiny train station, way out in the county. And while much of old Cordova is gone, there’s one place where you can get your small-​town fix.
The small museum fills up one room (and a small annex) in the Cordova Community Center. Since the building housed the Cordova School from the early 1900s until the mid-​1970s, much of the museum’s limited space is given to a model classroom.
After the school was closed, the county stored all of the old school fixtures in the building, which means that much of what you can see in the Cordova Museum is authentic to the school. There are musty books, old sports jerseys, photos of the first graduating class (three people), sheet music from the glee club, school picture day proofs and a binder full of graded writing assignments (mostly nature poetry) from the 1950s.
The most impressive thing about the Cordova Museum, though, is its collection of photographs and archives from the town’s history dating back to roughly 1860. And unlike many museums, the Cordova Museum’s staff of one, Cordova native Darlene Hooker Sawyer, can tell you the names (and often the backstories) of every single person in the photographs.
If you grew up in Cordova and ever participated in any Fourth of July parades, crafts fairs or halloween events at the Community Center, there’s a high liklihood that your picture is in one of the binders in the Museum.
Since my mom insisted that we participate in just about every single Cordova event, I was able to find a photo of my childhood best friend and I dressed up in ridiculous homemade red white and blue bunting dresses from an early 90s Independence Day parade.
The Cordva Museum is open Tuesdays and Thursdays from 9 a.m. until 4 p.m. and on Saturdays from 9 a.m. until 2 p.m. Admission is free, and they’ve also got free access to
from the museum computers.