COVE — Twenty-six years have passed since Alice Alexander retired after a two-decade career as Cove’s city recorder.

Alexander’s colleagues and friends marked the occasion in 1997 by presenting her with a mantel clock.

“It is wonderful,” the lifelong Cove resident said.

Today, it seems delightfully ironic that Alexander received a clock, because after retiring her focus has been on turning back the hands of time.

Alexander is the custodian of her community’s past, the creator and director of the History Room at the Cove Public Library. The room is packed with almost everything one would want to know about Cove’s past, including notebooks filled with documents, photos, newspaper clippings and Cove High School yearbooks dating back to the 1930s.

The collection reflects a neverending quest by Alexander to document the community’s history. It is a quest that will be saluted at the Cove Public Library on Saturday, May 20, during an open house that will run from 1-3 p.m. Alexander will be honored at the event.

Ever humble, Alexander does not feel comfortable about being thrust into the spotlight.

“I don’t like being the focus of attention,” she said.

What Alexander, 91, does like is sharing Cove’s story.

People coming to the open house will have an opportunity to learn about many historical topics, including the fiery tale of the Cove Public Library, which has had three homes during its more than 100-year history. The library’s first building burned down in 1919.

The library was then moved into Cove’s city hall, where its books were stored in the former jail structure. Remnants of the jail are still visible today.

“There are stone blocks from the jail behind the post office,” Alexander noted.

In 1921, that version of Cove’s library at city hall also burned down. The library was moved into its current building, at 606 Main St., in 1924. The building, constructed in 1923-24 was designed to be a library and has been operated by Cove Improvement Club, an all-volunteer organization, ever since.

“It is amazing what it has done with an all-volunteer staff,” Alexander said of the organization.

A photo taken not long after the library opened is displayed in the library’s History Room. No photo credit is listed, but many in Alexander’s collection were taken by Mae Stearns, then one of the most prominent photographers in Eastern Oregon.

Photos of early Cove taken by Stearns include ones of businesses and of high school students taking part in sporting events. Many of the Stearns photos were made from glass plate negatives, some of which Alexander has at the library.

“We feel so fortunate to have them,” she said.

Glass plate negatives were used by many photographers through the early 1900s.

Alexander during the open house will be available to talk with visitors about the many businesses Cove has had during its history, including a hotel, a drugstore, three newspapers, a bank, a meat market, a park, a funeral home, a railroad, a flour mill and a sawmill, which operated at least into the 1950s where Cove High School now is.

“Its pond was under where the high school gym is now,” Alexander said.

Alexander has a firsthand knowledge of much of Cove’s past since she has lived there all of her life, more than nine decades. She grew up on a family farm where apples were among the crops raised. Alexander recalled that her parents cut down on apple production after suffering a big blow when the apples they paid to be sent east by train froze while being shipped, rendering them unmarketable.

“They did not get the money they had spent on freight,” she said.

Alexander said that both mother and father were interested in history, and she believes this rubbed off on her. She noted that studying local history is an endlessly intriguing process, because every time she learns something new, it raises new questions that further pique her curiosity.

Mary Jane Johnson, a member of the Cove Improvement Club, said the community owes a lot to Alexander. She explained that many people donate local history items to the Cove Public Library’s History Room because of the job Alexander has done in creating it.

“Without the History Room a lot of people would not be donating items to the library,” Johnson said.

Alexander has no plans to step away from the Cove Public Library’s History Room.

“Once I get involved in something,” she said, “I don’t know when to quit.”