Trains have played a vital role in the founding of some towns and the growth of other towns all across the United States.
Rockdale is no exception. The International & Great Northern Railroad was able to roll into the Rockdale area after B.F. Ackerman and Frank Smith sold land to the railroad in 1873. The track from Hearne to Austin was finished the next year and that is when the first train steamed into Rockdale, which was incorporated into a city in 1878.
That is one of the things that will be celebrated when three area historic museums recognize the contribution of trains on May 8. On that day, the Rockdale I&GN Depot, the Milam County Railroad Museum in Cameron and the Hearne Depot will celebrate National Train Day with a “triple header,” a term used when three locomotives are coupled together to pull a train. The event will run from 10 a.m. until 6 p.m. at each location.
National Train Day is held annually on the Saturday closest to May 10, the anniversary of the pounding of the golden spike in Promontory, Utah, which marked the completion of the first transcontinental railroad.
In Rockdale, you can hop aboard a Missouri Pacific caboose and dining car. Also, Rockdale will unveil two new model displays, an “N” scale and a new “O” scale built by the Milam County Railroad Club. Hearne will display an “N” scale model. The Milam County Railroad Museum in Cameron will show off “Old Town Cameron,” built by local resident John Johnson.
Jamie Larson, the director of the Milam County Railroad Museum in Cameron, and members of the Milam County Model Railroad Club along with the help of the club in Temple, are fixing up and adding to a large, scale model of the train setup as it was back in the early 20th century in Rockdale.
The setup is inside the old baggage claim area of the rail line that is behind the depot.
The diorama shows Rockdale as it would have appeared in the 1920s when it was a significant shipping and supply point for farmers in the area.
“Noland Bland built this in the ‘80s,” Larson said.
Retired teacher and historian Lucile Estell wrote an article of her impression of what Bland built that was published in 1996 in The Rockdale Reporter.
“The model came to life as I examined sites which were among my first memories growing up in Rockdale in the early 1930s. The feelings were so real that for a fleeting moment I felt that I had been once more at Mr. C.W. Matson’s Dixie Theater, followed by an ice cream at Mrs. Hill’s.”
The late Bland used a map of 1928 Rockdale to construct his masterpiece.
“You’ve got the town all built representing actual businesses from the 1900s,” said Dan Fischer, one of the volunteer workers.
“We have been working on this for a year and a half,” Larson said, adding that COVID-19 slowed down the progress. “The entire layout has been restored. We have spent lots of hours refurbishing it.”
Fisher has memories of when the Rockdale depot on Main Street was bustling with activity.
“I grew up south of Rockdale. I would ride my bike up 908 to here. Mr. Brockman was the station agent and I would get a short ride on the engine,” Fischer said.
He sees what he is doing as providing a service to the area.
“It’s a way to give back to the community,” he said.
Larson said he has long had a love of trains and played with them when he was young.
He also developed a love for the study of history.
“My love of history and trains comes together working on this,” he said.
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