DUANE
Duane's take
Here's the story as the official marker tells it, and friends, this one deserves to be told carefully. We're standing at the site of the Mundine Hotel in Rockdale, Milam County — and what happened here is the kind of thing a town doesn't forget. John Mundine, out of Lexington, Texas, built this place in 1880, finishing it up six years after Rockdale had incorporated along the International and Great Northern rail line.
He put it right near the depot, which made all the sense in the world — travelers stepping off the train would need somewhere to sleep, somewhere to eat, somewhere to set down their bags and rest their bones. The hotel opened in 1881 under the management of Dr. and Mrs. W.
A. Brooks, three stories tall, standing proud on this very ground. Now, eight years is long enough to become a landmark.
Long enough that people in town would point toward it when giving directions. Long enough that it felt permanent. But in 1888, fire came for the Mundine Hotel.
That three-story structure was destroyed — and when it burned, eleven of the thirteen people inside it did not survive. Eleven of thirteen. The hotel was never rebuilt.
What stood here from 1880 to 1888, that brief bright chapter of Rockdale's railroad era, exists now only in the record — and in markers like this one, making sure nobody drives past without knowing what this ground once held.
What the marker says
The Mundine Hotel stood on this site from its construction in 1880 until its destruction by fire in 1888. Completed six years after Rockdale incorporated along the International & Great Northern rail line, the hotel was built near the depot to accommodate rail travelers. John Mundine of Lexington, Texas, built the inn, and it opened in 1881 under the management of Dr. and Mrs. W. A. Brooks. The fire that destroyed the three-story structure also killed 11 of its 13 occupants. Never rebuilt, the Mundine Hotel remains a part of Rockdale's history and its significant association with the railroad. (2001)