Rockdale has a birthday, looks forward to many more in future
Happy birthday, Rockdale. The more-or-less official birthday of our town is June 14. We’ve been an incorporated town since 1874. Here’s the story. In early 1873 the International & Great Northern Railroad tracks stopped at Hearne. Directors of the railroad decided to push westward toward Austin. Not all at once, of course. A town was to be laid out to be a new, and temporary, railroad terminus, and that turned out to be us. Settlers, led by B. F. Ackerman, George Green and Frank Smith—Rockdale has streets with those last name, if you notice—sold lots to the railroad on which to lay out the new town. The lot auction was held Sept. 3, 1873. One of the buyers was E. H. Scarbrough who purchased a lot right in the middle of the new town for $150. It became a legendary Rockdale business, burned down in 1935, then Scarborough’s became a legendary Austin business. It’s now the site of the city library. The “town” soon was a tent city. First structure in Rockdale was a large tent hotel, followed by a tent grocery. Before 1873 was out, Major W. M. McGregor and his nephew James Muir moved their Milam County Messenger newspaper to Rockdale. Twenty years later it merged with The Reporter and became The Rockdale Reporter and Messenger. That’s us, 146 years later. Yes, the newspaper is a year older than the town. The first train arrived Feb. 4, 1874. The new town’s residents didn’t waste any time. On May 18 they went to the polls and voted to incorporate. In July of that year the Chief Justice of Milam County entered the election results with a note that Rockdale’s citizens “are incorporated.” Somehow June 14 became the accepted date of incorporation. That date was reinforced the next year. Rockdale observed its first “birthday” on June 14, 1875, as Mayor A. A. Burck and the city council changed the official name from “the town of Rockdale” to “the city of Rockdale.” Texas law at the time allowed all towns with populations of 1,000 or more to declare themselves cities. (By the way, when all this town-founding and city-proclaiming was going on, the president of the United States was Ulysses S. Grant.) The rest, as they say, is history. In 1974 the town hosted a week-long Centennial celebration that included a mile-long parade, multi-night, professionally-produced musical pageant at Tiger Field, and just about every kind of event you can imagine. Including burying a time capsule to be opened in 50 years, probably on June 14, 2024. Folks, that’s just five years away—M.B.
- Log in or Subscribe to post comments.