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Industrial Legacy

Rockdale has been an industrial town for more than a century. Railroads, coal, aluminum, and now data centers and advanced manufacturing have each found a home here.

Historic aerial photo of Alcoa Rockdale Works, with long smelting buildings, rail lines, the power plant with two stacks, and the lake beyond
Alcoa Rockdale Works, with its power plant and lake beyond.

Our Story

  1. 1874

    A railroad town

    Rockdale began as an agricultural community and became a town when the railroad put in a stop here.

  2. Late 1800s

    Coal becomes the first industry

    The discovery of lignite coal deposits gave Rockdale its first industry, and mining shaped the town for generations.

  3. 1954

    Alcoa comes to Rockdale

    After World War II, Alcoa chose Rockdale for an aluminum smelter because of the lignite next door to fuel it. The plant was dedicated in April 1954, and for more than half a century Alcoa, its mines, and its power plants employed generations of Rockdale families.

    Texas dignitaries standing in front of the crowd at the Rockdale plant dedication, with the smelter and smokestacks behind them
    Texas dignitaries at the Rockdale plant dedication, April 1954. Left to right: an unidentified guest, Congressman W.R. Poage, TP&L executive W.W. Lynch, Governor Allan Shivers, and Alcoa’s Tom Jolly.
    A giant walking dragline excavator at a lignite mine, with a worker and bulldozers dwarfed beside it
    A dragline at the lignite mine, May 6, 1953.
    Workers tending a long line of aluminum reduction pots inside a smelting building
    Workers on a potline at Rockdale Works.
  4. 2008–2013

    Rockdale holds on

    When the smelter closed in 2008 and the power plants followed in 2013, Rockdale held on. It kept its people, its industrial know-how, and the infrastructure that heavy industry leaves behind.

  5. 2018

    A new industry plugs in

    Bitmain, now Bitdeer, leased the former Alcoa plant and converted it into a bitcoin mine, putting the site’s massive electric infrastructure back to work.

  6. 2020

    A data center hub takes shape

    Whinstone, now Riot Platforms, followed with its own bitcoin mining operation on the property, making Rockdale a growing hub for data centers.

  7. 2021

    XEBEC buys the Alcoa property

    XEBEC purchased the 30,000-acre former Alcoa property and announced The Switch, a 3,300-acre industrial park, along with a gas-fired peaker power plant on the Lee County portion of the property.

  8. 2025

    Manufacturing returns

    In March 2025, T1 Energy became the first announced tenant at The Switch, with a solar cell manufacturing plant.

  9. Today

    The next chapter

    The Rockdale MDD’s 100-acre Rockdale Industrial Park is ready for the next company to build here.

    See the Industrial Park →

What Industry Left Behind

Seventy years of heavy industry built things most small towns never have, and they’re still here.

Power infrastructureLarge-scale electric infrastructure, built for one of the state’s biggest industrial power users, now draws data centers to Rockdale.
Land for industryThousands of acres with a history of industrial use, including the former Alcoa property now being redeveloped as The Switch.
RailUnion Pacific service on the line through Rockdale, a legacy of the town’s railroad beginnings.
Energy countryThousands of acres of solar farms across Milam County, drawn by transmission lines and open agricultural land.

An Industrial Community

Generations of Rockdale families worked shifts at the smelter, the mines, and the power plants. This is a community that understands plant work and safety culture, and welcomes industry rather than fighting it.

Ready to write the next chapter in Rockdale?

See Our Target Industries

Historic photos courtesy of the Senator John Heinz History Center.