EDITORIAL
Ten years ago this week was the beginning of the end for Alcoa’s Rockdale Operations. In June, 2008, Alcoa announced it was shutting down three of its six potlines at the Rockdale Operations smelter. In November Alcoa revealed the other three were also going down.
In ensuing years the remaining facilities around the smelter were closed.
Last year, Luminant announced it was closing its power plant and that switch was turned off in January.
In the first rush of disappointment 10 Junes ago, the big-city TV folks—after first hauling out their smart phones to find out where Rock-dale actually is—flocked here to file “gloom and doom” stories.
Two images have stood out over the years. One station reported dutifully on the smelter closing and illustrated it with several minutes video of the Luminant power plant, which didn’t close for another decade.
Another managed to find someone who prophesied the end for our town. The actual quote was that tumbleweeds would be rolling down the streets here in 10 years.
It’s been 10 years. What does a visitor see while driving our two main thoroughfares, Cameron Avenue and Murray Avenue?
• Ground being prepared for a new $6.5-million, 80-bed nursing home adjacent to the intermediate school. It is expected to employ about 100 and will replace an older facility.
• Site preparation nearing an end for a new $5-million football stadium to house the defending state champion Rockdale Tigers and many other RHS teams. It’s being built without a tax increase or bond issue.
• The slab for the $3.5-million new Rockdale Police Station. Police will move from the historic 123-year-old building which volunteers hope to renovate as a downtown showpiece joining our two Main Street “bookends,” the I&GN Depot and the Kay Theatre.
• A downtown which is about to change, radically, for the better. After highway renovation and new sidewalk projects are complete in the next few years, Rockdale will look better than it has in many decades, at least since the Alcoa boom years of the 1950s.
What you won’t see:
• Tumbleweeds.—M.B.
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