100 YEARS AGO....
Rockdale residents voted in favor of a $75,000 bond issue to construct a new high school. Vote was 92-19. Classes for high school and intermediate students were being held in the City Hall and current primary school until the new school was completed.
Rockdale area residents were excited about the new process to carbonize lignite coal. It produced briquettes for use by industries, railroads and for other uses. The area was rich in lignite.
Dr. T. E. Riddle took out an ad in The Reporter saying if the person who took two of his call books for the two previous years, plus another journal, would return them, the doctor would pay $2 with “no questions asked.”
Returning World War I veteran Percy Diehl said his ship had been attacked several times while en route to France across the Atlantic Ocean, without major casualties, 104 died on board during the crossing, most of them due to the flu.
FORTY YEARS AGO....
It was a dangerous week on Rockdale area roads. Nine persons were transported to area hospitals after an unrelated series of highway accidents.
A search by over 100 firefighters, law enforcement officers, EMS volunteers, friends and neighbors ended tragically west of Rock-dale when the body of a two-year-old boy was discovered at the bottom of a stock tank.
Rockdale’s FM 908 water well was back in action after being offline since March. City Manager Dan Roark said the well was pumping between 750,000 and 900,000 gallons per day.
Texas Football magazine picked the Rockdale Tigers second in District 23AA.
TWENTY YEARS AGO....
It was the latest in a series of recurring crises for Richards Memorial Hospital as new federal legislation was to cut back reimbursements for Medicare patients and Administrator Ed Lynch said 77 percent of the hospital’s patients were on Medicare.
With two weeks remaining before the opening of the 1999-2000 school year, Rockdale ISD trustees still had eight positions to fill including a band director and an assistant principal’s post.
City council members were eyeing a $500,000 to $1-million expenditure, and ways to pay for it, as they grappled with relocating water and sewer lines in advance of a Texas Department of Transportation project on US 79.
Tawansia Marion of Rock-dale broke a national AAU record for her age group when the 9-year-old ran a 13.56 in the 100-meter dash.
TEN YEARS AGO....
Five Rockdale residents were indicted by a Milam County Grand Jury in connection with a two-night South Milam County vandalism spree that resulted in 25 separate incidents.
Milam County recorded its fifth and sixth cases of the swine flu with both reported to be doing well. Health officials said just short of 5,000 Texans had the virus and a Temple woman had died.
Four years after a contract to sell water to the city of San Antonio fell through, Alcoa was still searching for a customer.
Thorndale ISD tied for fifth statewide in the Class A Lone Star Cup, an annual competition which ranks achievements of a district’s combined academic, extracurricular and athletics during a school term.
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