MILAM COUNTY TEXAS - A History of Rockdale Texas (Population History)
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File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by
Lynna Kay Shuffield for the
Milam County Genealogical Society
milamco@yahoo.com
July 26, 2001
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There is an html version of this information with pictures at
http://www.usgwarchives.net/tx/milam/rockdale/
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Population History

POPULATION OF ROCKDALE
(Researched by Mrs. Ida Jo Marshall)

Rockdale was among the principal towns on the International and Great Northern 
Railway. It rapidly increased in population because it was an important shipping point for 
the products of Milam and Bell counties. The quantity of cotton shipped from Rockdale 
annually reached over 16,000 bales. It had railroad connections North, South, East and 
West; low rate taxation; excellent schools, a wide tange of churches; good banking 
facilities; efficient system of water works and electric lights; ample housing 
accomodations; cheap lumber; average cotton crops; an excellent weekly newspaper, and 
inexhaustible mines of lignite coal.

Decline in population during the twentieth century was caused by the disappearance of 
tenant farming and sharecropping. During the depression there was a back-to-farm 
movement. There was an increase in farm wages. As a result there were wide 
employment possibilities in industry and increased use of farm machinery which required 
fewer unskilled laborers.

The principal result of the construction of the Alcoa plant has been the growth of 
population in Rockdale. The city's population tripled in a few months. New residential 
additions had been laid out, and in them new dwellings were built. Traffic increased, 
parking meters were erected. A transit bus and taxis appeared. To take care of the 
population increase, the city issued $125,000 for water and sewage and a million dollars 
for schools.

In the chart below is listed the population growth of the city of Rockdale from 1880 to 
the last census taken in 197C.

1880  | 1890  | 1900  | 1910  | 1920  | 1930  | 1940  | 1950  | 1960  | 1970
1,185 | 1,505 | 2,515 | 2,073 | 3,323 | 2,204 | 2,136 | 2,321 | 4,481 | 4,655