Looking back...

10-20-40-100 YEARS AGO

100 YEARS AGO...

Rev. W.A. Posey, evangelist of San Antonio, was to begin a series of co-operative meetings at the Presbyterian church in Rockdale. Members of other denominations agreed to join in and help make the meeting a success.

To sell $5,040 worth of products and get cash on them, from 27 acres of Milam County sandy land, as Robert Caywood of the Talbot Ridge community, is a record which it is believed few farmers can best anywhere in Texas.

Nothing stimulates interest in the schools as a Parent-Teachers Association. These associations do splendid work wherever organized in the state. Let’s have one in Rockdale.

Notice was given that the annual stockholders meeting of the Rockdale State Bank was to be held in the directors’ room of the bank on Jan. 11, 1921. The purpose of the meeting was to elect a board of directors for the ensuing year.

FORTY YEARS AGO...

A Corsicana judge ruled in favor of Milam County in the first phase of a lawsuit filed by taxpayers seeking to overturn county action in creating a central appraisal district.

Texas Power & Light Company’s Sandow No. 4 turbine generator was in successful trial, a spokesman announced.

Rockdale School District administrators and the director of the Mary Lee Foundation Village worked out a compromise concerning the number of village residents who may attend local schools in the future.

On-site lignite coal gasification held promise for providing some of Texas’ future energy needs, but problems still existed with materials erosion and corrosion, according to Texas A&M University researchers.

TWENTY YEARS AGO...

It was a tragic Christmas weekend for many in Rockdale. Two children died in a fire on Christmas Eve and a man died in a wreck the day after Christmas.

One of the biggest county government turnovers in recent history happened when incoming Milam County officials took the oath of office.

Two Rockdale teens were arrested and two others were treated in the emergency room of Richards Memorial Hospital following a chase that Rockdale Police said involved a stolen car.

It wasn’t a white Christmas but it sure was a wet Christmas. While Rockdale escaped the ice and sleet that covered much of northern Texas, the area did receive a good soaking from rains that started Christmas Eve and continued through midweek.

TEN YEARS AGO...

Two thousand eleven was going to be so much better than 2010 for 13-year-old Dustin Strelsky of Rockdale.

On Jan. 20, 2010, Dustin sustained a spinal cord injury, leaving him in a wheelchair, in a wreck near Hearne that also injured his mother and sister and took the life of a 73-year-old Jacksonville resident. He began the new year with an honor that only 50 youngsters in the nation got. He was the Texas champion of the Children’s Miracle Network.

Milam County commissioners looked at ways to limit access to social networking sites by county employees after a survey indicated the average employee spent as much as five hours per day logged into Facebook and sites that were not work related.

The U.S. Census Bureau announced that the 2010 Census showed the resident population of the United States on April 1, 2010, was 308,745,538. Texas had the highest numerical gain, 4,293,741. Texas’ 2010 population was put at 25,145,561.

Milam County Treasurer Linda Acosta was to continue serving in that post for at least two more years. County commissioners named Acosta as county treasurer after accepting a “letter of decline” from County Auditor Danica Lara, who had been elected to the treasurer position for four years on Nov. 2.