Cordova, Alabama, in Walker County on the Mulberry Fork of the Black Warrior River, was founded in 1859 by Captain Benjamin McFarland Long, who named it after a town in Mexico where he had served under Robert E. Lee during the Mexican War. In 1885, Long moved into a residence whose construction had begun in 1883, a two-story early Greek Revival-style structure with Doric columns and four massive chimneys. Two railroads reached Cordova in 1886 and later became the present-day Burlington Northern Santa Fe and the Southern. Long also helped bring Indian Head Mills to Cordova; construction for the textile factory began in 1896 and it opened in 1898. A whole community grew up around the mill, including a ten-room school, library, hotel, commissary, and one hundred thirty worker tenements, while the mill employed more than 800 people in three shifts. Its closing in 1962 dealt a devastating blow to the local economy. In 1912, Long and his wife Amanda were honored indirectly when their heirs erected Long Memorial Methodist Church in their memory, with a square belfry and three stained glass windows with Gothic arches imported from Italy. Coal mining has been central to Cordova's history since the early 19th century, and other industries in the city have included a brick and clay company, steel plants, Vulcan Asphalt Refining Company, Chicago Bridge and Iron, Birmingham Forest Products, and BAE Systems. In the 1950s, Cordova was known as the Industrial Heart of Walker County, and a Veteran's Memorial in the town center bears the names of citizens who died in service during World War I, World War II, the Korean Conflict, and the Vietnam War.