City of Rockdale

Rockdale took its name from a stone. Mrs. B. F. Ackerman named the town for a nearby rock twelve feet high and twenty around. Her husband was one of three men, with George Green and Frank Smith, who sold 400 acres to the International-Great Northern in 1873. A sale of town lots was held on September 3, 1873, and the track reached Rockdale in early February 1874. The Handbook of Texas gives 1878 for incorporation, while the plaque says the city formally organized in 1875. By 1884 the town had an opera house with 250 seats.

What the plaque says

City of Rockdale Rockdale began as a railroad town in 1874 along a new line of the International & Great Northern. It grew quickly as a shipping point and soon boasted churches, schools, cotton gins, grist mills, an opera house, a bank and newspaper. The City of Rockdale formally organized in 1875. Work on a city hall began at this site in 1895 on the design of Austin architect A.O. Watson. Completed years later, it provided space for city programs, social gatherings, school functions and political meetings, and housed the volunteer fire department for 80 years. Altered in the 1930s, resulting in the loss of a tall bell tower, the former city hall still serves as a reminder of Rockdale's early development. (2005)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Milam County Courthouse and Jail — 13 mi
  Cameron's 1892 Renaissance Revival courthouse and the 1895 St. Louis-built jail beside it, now the county museum, are listed together on the National Register.
• Calvert — 30 mi
  A railroad cotton town of 1868 on State Highway 6 that claimed the largest cotton gin in the world and elected Black men to county and state office during Reconstruction.

More markers nearby

• Site of Mundine Hotel — steps away
• Railroads in Rockdale — steps away
• George Sessions Perry — steps away
• First Baptist Church of Rockdale — 0.2 mi