Rockdale was the site of a large Alcoa aluminium smelting facility, which could produce 1.67 million pounds of aluminum per day. The Alcoa plant profoundly changed the city, as noted in a "Saturday Evening Post" article by Rockdale native George Sessions Perry. Within a few years of its arrival in 1952, Rockdale almost doubled in population, changing in character from a predominantly agricultural economy to one heavily driven by manufacturing jobs. Smelting operations were halted at the Alcoa plant in 2008. The Alcoa plant closed in February 2014 when production at the atomizer ceased.