Looking back...

10-20-40-100 YEARS AGO

100 YEARS AGO.....

Tragedy in the Mt. Zion community. Three-year-old Ellafair Dyer died while playing with matches, accidentally setting her clothes on fire.

The local Anti-Sa-loon League was hosting renowned orator Joseph Camp of Georgia, and a relative of Rockdale’s E. A. Camp in a tribute to “General Pershing’s bone-dry army “ which had recently brought victory in “The Great War” (World War I).

Writing from Inverness, Scotland, awaiting transport home. T. C. Poole wrote: “As you know in Scotland they still wear kilts. In England they have gotten the habit of wearing clothes.”

Reporter Publisher John Esten Cooke, who coined the phrase “Regal Rockdale,’ noted that editors of Cameron newspapers had rejected his tagging of that city as “Queenly Cameron.” Added Cooke: “Until they come up with something better, Rockdale will adopt the alliteration “Cousin Cameron.”

FORTY YEARS AGO....

Thirteen persons, wielding shiny, gold-paint-covered shovels performed a groundbreaking ceremony for the new Community Band and trust, located on the southwest corner of Cameron and Wilcox (US 79 and FM 487).

Rockdale City Council members voted to authorize the police department to issue arrest warrants for persons with unpaid parking tickets.

A 350-pound heifer was killed and butchered in a pasture near Rockdale and Constable Spud Caywood was offering a $100 reward for information leading to an arrest.

Rockdale’s Gene Grayson won his fifth straight 330-yard intermediate hurdles race as Coach Lew Simmonds’ Tigers won the Rosebud-Lott Relays.

TWENTY YEARS AGO....

A deal to avoid a lawsuit by Alcoa against the Milam County Appraisal District was to result in a $30-million drop in appraisals and result in a taxable value loss of $460,000 to the Rock-dale ISD.

Alcoa’s Rockdale Operations was operating five potlines for the first time in five years. The smelter had been operating at 4.5 lines since spring of 1994, the lowest level of production since expanding to eight lines in the 1960s.

Rockdale ISD trustees adopted a 1999-2000 calendar with the earliest start to a school year in the district’s history. Classes were to start on Aug. 10.

A Freeport man was charged with breaking into a Post Oak Street home after police arrived to find the home owner holding the would be burglar at gunpoint.

TEN YEARS AGO....

There were 110 workers at Alcoa Sandow Power Plants 1, 2 and 3 dismantling the early 1950s structures. Demolition was estimated to be complete in August or September, 2000.

A survey submitted for study by the Rockdale Hospital District board indicated there had been no decline in use at Little River Healthcare facilities since the closing of Alcoa’s Rock-dale Operations. The final substantial layoffs at Alcoa had occurred earlier in the spring although the majority of the layoffs were in 2008.

Milam County commissioners were to revisit the matter of terminating a lease with a downtown Cameron building after a bizarre 2-0-3 vote. Two voted in favor, none against and three abstained. (The county judge is a voting member of the commissioners court). The measure did not pass because it did not receive a majority of the officials casting votes.

Jarad Richards’ Rockdale Tiger baseball team was on a 10-game winning streak.