100 YEARS AGO…
Our sister city, Thorndale, suffered a disastrous fire in the business section, entailing damage of approximately $50,000. Three rick business buildings were totally destroyed as follows: Thorndale State Bank; The John Moerbe Building, which was occupied by the M.E. Fisher & Sons dry goods; and the Malcom Gilcrest building, which was recently vacated by Burkhart’s Restaurant. The fire evidently had its origin in the Fisher dry good store. Thorndale had no organized fire department and no method of combating such conflagrations.
One of the most pleasing musical entertainments Rockdale had in years was at the City Hall auditorium when the Car Concert Quartette, representing the Central Music Co. of Temple and Little Rockdale, Arkansas, appeared under the auspices of the Baptist Women’s Auxiliary. The singers were aided by a local orchestra led by Dr. C.E. Wisecup, and composed of Mrs. W.A. Coffield, piano; Dr. Wisecup, Emory Camp and William Cooke, coronets; Charley Scheihing and Earnest Hyde, violins; James Johnson, trombone; and Ray Catchings, alto horn.
By special arrangement the local Post of the American Legion secured the official U.S. Government picture “America’s Answer,” which was shown at Maxie’s theater on Feb. 9.
40 YEARS AGO…
Rockdale’s first baby of 1983 was Chelsea Diana Shirley, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Warren Shirley, of 515 Evelyn St. in Rockdale.
Volunteer firemen selected a site for their proposed new fire station and received a commitment from the City Council to aid them in purchasing the land, located at the corner of Scarbrough and Bell, for an estimated cost of $25,000. (That isn’t where it finally ended up.)
20 YEARS AGO…
The long-awaited expansion of Rockdale’s city library into the adjacent Vogel building was in high gear. The $225,000 project would almost double the library’s size.
You couldn’t have judged the state of the dragging economy by Rockdale last year. The city marked its second highest total ever in building permits with over $4,087,691 in projects. Only the 1985 “housing-boom year” total of $4.9 million was higher. The biggest project of the year was construction of the $1.39 million First National Bank building on west US 79. There were also 17 homes built.
10 YEARS AGO…
Louis Eugene Weller Jr. was Rockdale’s first baby of 2013. Little Louis was the son of Dawn Cruz and Louis Weller Sr. of Rockdale. He made his appearance at 12:03 a.m. Jan. 3 in Temple’s Scott & White Hospital, weighing 6 pounds, 14 ounces and measuring 19 inches long.
On a 3-2 split vote, with Mayor Larry Jones casting the deciding vote, the Rockdale Chamber of Commerce received some of the funds it used to administer, allowing the organization to keep its “rock house” headquarters open regular hours as a visitor center.
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