Looking back...

100 YEARS AGO....

It was a close call for Rockdale Mayor H. C. Meyer. His car was struck by a train near Yoakum. The mayor was en route to Corpus Christi where his wife and children were spending the summer. Meyer sustained severe bruising but had no broken bones or internal injuries.

Two ranchers from the Ad Hall community were fined for not dipping their cattle in tick treatments. A third case had been filed against a Maysfield-area rancher.

Reporter Publisher John Esten Cooke was having a tough time recovering from emergency appendicitis surgery in the Cameron Sanitarium. Doctors said Cooke would require a four-week stay in the facility.

The Sheffield Royal Players were nearing the end of a week-long visit to Rock-dale. The traveling troupe, which included an orchestra, was performing three different plays. Admission was 25 cents and 5 cents.

FORTY YEARS AGO....

The Sandow Four project at Alcoa’s Rockdale Operations entered its final year. There were still 780 workers on the site employed with Brown & Root Co.

State Rep. Dan Kubiak announced a stop-and-go traffic signal would be installed at the Childress-Cameron (US 79) intersection.

City Council member Bill Avrett was named mayor pro tem. That position had been filled by former council woman Margie Abbott who had resigned due to moving from Rockdale.

Knights of Columbus Council 7014 held its second annual softball tourney at the city field, drawing crowds up to 600. Sixteen teams participating, attending from as far away as Houston.

TWENTY YEARS AGO....

A new MARC Center was planned for the campus of Richards Memorial Hospital. It was to be the third new headquarters for the organization, which served special needs clients.

Brown Steel Co. of Newnan, Georgia, was wrapping up work on a new, 250,000-gallon water tower at the city’s Mill Street plant. The tower was to replace an adjacent 150,000-gallon tower, erected in 1921.

Rockdale sprinter Raymond Huff qualified for national AAU competition in three events, the 100 meters, 200 meters and 4-by-100 relay. Huff competed as a member of the LC Express Track Club.

Milam County commissioners hired a consulting firm to guide the county through the complex claims process connected with the county’s accepting $312,798 in tobacco-settlement money.

TEN YEARS AGO....

Less than a week after he was acquitted in a jury trial of a holdup at Rock-dale’s Sunny Food Mart, a 20-year-old Bryan man pleaded “guilty” to the similar robbery of Gill’s Stop-N-Go three days earlier.

About 200 persons met at the Milam County Courthouse as the building was declared a “Recorded Texas Historic Landmark.”

“Awesome” was the word used most often and Rock-dale ISD School Board members and administrators toured a new intermediate campus and renovation-expansion of the high school. Both were scheduled to be ready for the first day of classes Aug. 24.

Two Houston men were arrested, and a warrant was issued for a third, in connection with a series of rural Milam County break-ins.