| History: | Joseph A. Carroll, J.W. Delaney, Rockland's first postmaster, and A.D. Carroll were of the Rockland Lumber Company, which began operating before 1890. It employed about seventy-five men with a daily capacity of 50,000 board.1889. The mill was sold to W. Hal Aldridge in 1890, and J. W. Delaney stayed on as a director to form the Aldridge Lumber Company with Aldridge in 1891. The Spring Creek Lumber Company, according to a newspaper report, was sold to Aldridge about the same time along with its tram road. By late 1892, the mill's tram road bridged the Neches River into Angelina County toward Lufkin. The mill was expanded in 1893. It burned in late 1894 or early 1895, but was rebuilt and operating again by August 1895. William Cameron and Company acquired the sawmill at Rockland in 1898.
Located near the Neches River, water supply was never a serious problem, and it was one of Cameron's finest and most modern Texas mills. Even John Henry Kirby considered buying the mill in 1905. It was a single circular saw sawmill, but rated daily capacities often approached 120,000 board feet. The plant ran nights in order to gain such high numbers. It had an electrical power plant that supplied lighting to the mill, commissary, and offices. Operations shut down in June 1912 because of inadequate timber supplies.
The company town grew quickly; by 1893. Workers lived in about eighty tenant houses, which increased to almost 100 by 1896. The Rockland mill employed 300 men in 1905, paying about $15,000 in monthly wages. By 1910, the town had about 800 people. The town consisted of one church, one school house, at least 130 houses, and two hotels. Four daily log trains from the woods to the mill pond kept the mill supplied with plenty of logs. Three locomotives were used over fourteen miles of tram lines in 1905.
Aldridge Lumber Company management consisted of W. Hal Aldridge of Rockland, J. F. Collier of Warren, J. W. Delaney of Rockland, F. M. Aldridge of Beaumont, and G. W. Collier of Village Mills. Cameron mill managers at Rockland were H.S. Hubbard, Charles R. Ball, John E. West, and Willis R. Jones.
Two Baptist ministers served as the mill foreman and the woods foreman in 1889. |