100 YEARS AGO...
Milano people hooked up with an honest-to-goodness oil proposition and work had commenced on the Burnet land about half a mile south of the city. Materials were being placed and a water well drilled, and it was planned to spud in on the deep test on Sept. 15. On that date, Milano Commercial Club was planning to celebrate with a public barbecue.
A call for bids was published on the job of constructing 8.2 miles of Hwy. 44, otherwise known as the “Sap Highway,” leading south out of Rockdale to the Lee County line. This road was also known as the Forest Grove or Hicks or Lexington road.
Following an early morning fire in which a building was damaged and another endangered, J.C. Crawley mailed the Rockdale Fire Department a check for $25, accompanied by a letter for the “quickness, system and all-around team work executed by you in reaching the fire and getting it under control.”
40 YEARS AGO...
You could play 42, jog or walk, pitch horseshoes, enter swimming, softball or bicycle competitions, dance, view a chicken-flying contest, try your hand at cow-chip throwing and a whole lot more at the ninth annual Thorndale Chili Cookoff.
School districts and towns would soon be getting their certified tax rolls from the Milam County Tax Appraisal District.
Milam County law enforcement personnel were still searching for two men—one black, one white—who held up Midway Grocery at gunpoint and made off with $560 from the store cash register.
The big play. That’s what Coach Jim Carson’s Rockdale Tigers would be gearing up to stop when Columbus’ fleet Cardinals came to town in the 1981 grid opener for both squads.
20 YEARS AGO...
A Texas Railroad Commission final decision on Alcoa’s proposed 3 Oaks Mine was at least a year away, but the TRC never denied Alcoa a permit.
The final listing of taxable values for the county’s jurisdiction increased from the preliminary figures released in June, according to chief appraiser Pat Moraw.
Despite weekend flash flood warnings—and flooding in other areas of Central Texas—Rockdale avoided the worst of a very wet statewide weekend.
Strange as it sounds, the season opener at Smithville was a big game for the Rockdale Tigers. It would be the first chance to prove all the preseason prognosticators wrong...or right.
10 YEARS AGO...
Rockdale residents were losing one of their two weekly trash pickup days after a divided City Council ended a lively discussion with a 4-2 vote. The council voted to direct City Manager Kelvin Knauf to negotiate with IESI for once-a-week service beginning around Jan. 1.
Even for the hottest summer ever recorded in Rockdale, Sunday was a flat-out scorcher. The mercury at the U.S. Weather Service thermometer at KRXT-FM climbed to 112 on Sunday afternoon, the second-highest temperature ever recorded in the 86-plus years the Weather Service staffed a Rockdale observing station. The only hotter day was Sept. 4, 2000, when the temperature climbed to 113.
City Council members adopted a 2011-12 city budget that contained a $6-per-month increase in Rockdale’s basic water rates.
Meeting in back-to-back regular sessions at City Hall, council members gave unanimous approval twice to the budget, which also contained a slight hike in the tax rate, from 66.2775 cents to 67.0498 cents.
Unable to overcome three costly turnovers within the 10-yard line, the Rockdale Tigers lost their season opener for the first time in five years to an opportunistic Abilene Wylie squad 35-14 at Tiger Field. Despite the disappointment of dropping the opener, there were positives that came out of the contest, it’s hard to comprehend any setbacks.
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