100 YEARS AGO....
Two of Rockdale’s most prominent citizens were either home from hospital stays or were headed that way. Reporter Publisher John Esten Cooke was to be released from the Cameron Sanitarium after a four-week stay for appendix surgery, Mayor H. C. Meyer was home from Yoakum after his car was hit by a train. Neither man was expected to return home soon.
Brothers Hicks and James Carlyle, Hamilton Chapel residents, were buried in France with full military honors by the French government. The Carlyles were killed in the closing days of World War I. Rockdale’s American Legion Post is named for them.
Several prominent Rock-dale leaders met to plan the town’s first-ever kindergarten. It was to be offered to children ages 5-7.
With a new Rockdale school being planned, “College Hill” resident N. J. Alford took out an ad to offer his house and land, located south of the present school, for sale. He promised “high elevation and cool south wind throughout the summer.”
FORTY YEARS AGO....
A 23-year-old Mexican national was decapitated when he was struck by a Missouri-Pacific freight train near Rockdale’s western city limits.
Pool lifeguard Lori Fry was credited with saving the life of a 10-year-old Rockdale boy by bringing him up from the bottom of the city pool and performing CPR.
The Lexington ISD converted its track to the metric system, becoming the first in the Rockdale area to trade in yards for meters.
A freak high wind was blamed for collapsing part of a wall being constructed for Rockdale’s new Walmart store on the site of the former Reel Drive-In Theater.
TWENTY YEARS AGO....
A 22-year-old Rockdale man was arrested in Gause and charged with two burglaries in downtown Rock-dale. In one burglary $800 in cash and four guns were taken.
According to Alcoa officials, the company was confident their permit for a proposed lignite mine in Lee and Bastrop counties would be approved by the Texas Railroad Commission despite opposition to the plans.
The body of a 47-year-old Cameron man was recovered from the Little River after he drowned near the FM 1915 bridge.
Rockdale native Bill Luckey retired from the Texas Workforce Commission after 13 years on the job.
TEN YEARS AGO....
A 34-year-old Rockdale man, wanted on multiple warrants, was arrested by 10 law enforcement officers from four agencies after a standoff in a Cameron motel room.
Ten laid-off employees of Alcoa’s Rockdale Operations were called back temporarily to clean out metal left in potrooms when the smelter was shut down in 2008.
Truck driver Robert Donald of Troy received the Department of Public Safety’s highest citizen award for pulling a fellow trucker to safety 20 seconds before the rig exploded on FM 487 near Tracy.
The Rockdale City Council okayed a new “commercial zoning designation” for portions of Main and Ackerman Streets.
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