Through The Reporter Files

Looking back...

100 YEARS AGO....

The devastating flu pandemic had reached The Rockdale Reporter. Publisher John Esten Cooke came down with the flu and wrote that he was taking “a vacation.” Cooke asked for the public’s help as the newspaper continued publication without its publisher-editor.

Nebraska joined Texas and 37 other states in ratifying the constitutional amendment prohibiting the sale, manufacture and imitation of “intoxicating liquor.” That made three-fourths of the states and Prohibition was assured.

Only four Rockdale woman had paid their city election poll taxes and the deadline was Jan. 31.

A soldier identified only as Pvt. Budd, stopped at the Rockdale depot to change trains. Pvt. Budd had been shot twice and gassed once in the war. He was returning home to Lexington and said his parents did not know he was on the way.

FORTY YEARS AGO...

Rockdale physicians said, while there had been a few cases of hepatitis in the area they were isolated and that rumors of an epidemic were false.

The Rockdale ISD reached an all-time enrollment record of 1,926 with 602 in the high school.

School trustees awarded Supt. Dr. Walter Vincent a new three-year contract. Dr. Vincent became superintendent in 1974, replacing J. M. Moorman.

Duane Vincent’s Tiger cagers extended their winning streak to 21 with victories over Caldwell and Rosebud-Lott.

TWENTY YEARS AGO....

An article entitled “10 years after the scare” highlighted the changes and progress at Richards Memorial Hospital a decade after the facility faced a crisis in 1989.”

Tim Smith of Grapevine was name the new Rockdale Police Chief, replacing Stan Powell. Eighteen persons had applied for the job and 14 were interviewed before the city council made its decision.

Rockdale wasn’t a good place to park a car during the week as four vehicles were taken in three separate incidents. A car taken from a dealership was stopped in Minerva and charges were filed.

It was the end of an era. Rockdale’s American Legion building was razed. The building was the bottom floor of the old Wolf Hotel, a 19th Century landmark which flourished during Rockdale’s railroad boom years of the 1870s-80s.

TEN YEARS AGO....

The ultimate future of a US 79 loop around Rockdale was said to be tied up in a state budget crunch which was impacting the budget of the Texas Department of Transportation.

School trustees were eyeing a “TAKS Boot Camp” to assist 14 Rockdale High School seniors who not yet passed the test, which was required in order to receive their diplomas.

Alcoa said it would terminate an addition 96 employees in March, the final ones in a series of layoffs connected with shutting down the Rockdale Operations smelter.

Over 350 persons attended a “goodbye Walter” ceremony in the junior-high commons as the community commemorated the retirement of Supt. Walter Pond, whose 38-year education career was entirely in the Rockdale ISD, the last 20 as superintendent.