Laurel, Mississippi

Laurel is a city in and the second county seat of Jones County, Mississippi, United States. As of the 2020 census, the city had a population of 17,161. Laurel is northeast of Ellisville, the first county seat, which contains the first county courthouse. It has the second county courthouse, as Jones County has two judicial districts. Laurel is the headquarters of the Jones County Sheriff's Department, which has jurisdiction in the county. Laurel is the principal city of a micropolitan statistical area named for it. Its major employers include Howard Industries, Sanderson Farms, Masonite International, Family Health Center, Howse Implement, Thermo-Kool, and South Central Regional Medical Center. Laurel is home to the Lauren Rogers Museum of Art, Mississippi's oldest art museum, established by the family of Lauren Eastman Rogers. History Following the 1881 construction of the New Orleans and Northeastern Railroad through the area, economic development occurred rapidly. The city of Laurel was incorporated in 1882, with timber as the impetus. Yellow pine forests in the region fueled the industry. The city was named for thickets of mountain laurel (Kalmia latifolia) native to the original town site. Located in the heart of the piney woods ecoregion of the Southeastern United States, the land site that eventually became Laurel was densely covered with forests of virgin longleaf pine, making the area attractive to pioneering lumberjacks and sawmill operators in the late 19th century. In 1881, business partners John Kamper and A.M. Lewin constructed a small lumber mill on the New Orleans and Northeastern Railroad. Kamper and Lewin's mill was in an area that later became Laurel's First Avenue. The next year, in response to a Post Office Department request to provide a postal delivery name for their mill and its surrounding lumber camp, Kamper and Lewin submitted the name "Lawrell" as an homage to the area's naturally growing mountain laurel bushes. Federal postal officials soon "corrected" the peculiar spelling, giving the town its current spelling. During its first decade or so, Laurel was little more than a glorified lumber camp surrounding Kamper and Lewin's primitive sawmill. By 1891, Kamper's company was on the verge of bankruptcy, leading him to sell the mill and extensive land holdings in the area (more than 15,000 acres), to Clinton, Iowa, lumber barons Lauren Chase Eastman and George and Silas Gardiner, founders of the Eastman-Gardiner Company. After their purchase, Eastman and the Gardiner brothers decided to make substantial improvements to Laurel's lumber operations by constructing a new, much larger, state-of-the-art lumber mill. In 1893, the new Eastman-Gardiner Company mill began operations, using the best technology and labor-saving devices of the day. By the early 1900s, the success of Eastman-Gardner Company's operations in Laurel and the region's superabundance of timber began to attract other lumber industrialists' attention. In 1906, the Gilchrist-Fordney Company, whose founders hailed from Alpena, Michigan, began construction on their own lumber mill in Laurel. By March 1907, the Mobile, Jackson and Kansas City Railroad made four stops a day in Laurel, which was 110 track miles from Mobile, Alabama. The trains not only carried passengers, but also hauled freight that included lumber from nine sawmills. Together, they produced around 583,000 board feet (bf) a day. WM Carter Lumber Company (milepost 108) produced 20,000 bf; Eastman-Gardner and Company, 200,000 bf; Kingston Lumber Company, 200,000 bf; Geo Beckner (shingles), 20,000 bf; John Lindsey, 15,000 bf; HC Card Lumber Company (hard wood), 30,000 bf; Lindsey Wagon Works mill, 15,000 bf; WM Carter (planer). 75,000 bf; and Stainton and Weems, 8,000 bf. The Wausau-Southern mill from Wausau, Wisconsin, followed in 1911, and the Marathon mill from Memphis, Tennessee, in 1914. By the end of World War I, Laurel's mills produced and shipped more yellow pine lumber than those of any other location in the world. By the 1920s—the peak of Laurel's lumber production—the area's four mills were producing a total of one million board feet (2,400 m3) of lumber per day. The economic prosperity of Laurel's timber era (1893–1937) and "timber families" created the famed Laurel Central Historic District. The area is considered Mississippi's largest, finest, and most intact collection of early 20th-century architecture, and has been listed on the National Register of Historic Places since September 4, 1987, for both its historical value and its wide variety of architectural styles. Many of the district's homes and buildings are featured on the HGTV series Home Town. In addition to influencing a diverse architectural district, Laurel's "timber families" influenced the building of the town's broad avenues, the design of numerous public parks, and the development of strong public schools. The city's population grew markedly during the early 20th century because rural people were attracted to manufacturing jobs and the economic takeoff of Masonite International. Mechanization of agriculture reduced the number of farming jobs. The city reached its peak census population in 1960, and has declined about one third since then. Laurel was the site of several notable racial incidents prior to and during the Civil Rights movement. In 1942, Howard Wash, a 45-year-old African-American man who had been convicted of murder, was dragged from jail and lynched by a mob. At midnight on May 8, 1951, Willie McGee was electrocuted in Laurel after being convicted of raping a white woman. Over a thousand white citizens gathered at the courthouse for the execution, which was broadcast on the radio. In March 1968, Martin Luther King Jr. spoke at the St. Paul United Methodist Church in Laurel. It was one year after the Ku Klux Klan had firebombed the church. Geography Laurel is in north-central Jones County, 8 miles (13 km) northeast of Ellisville, the first county seat. Interstate 59 and U.S. Route 11 pass through Laurel, both highways leading southwest 30 miles (48 km) to Hattiesburg and northeast 57 miles (92 km) to Meridian. U.S. Route 84 passes through the south side of the city, leading east 30 miles (48 km) to Waynesboro and west 27 miles (43 km) to Collins. Mississippi Highway 15 passes through the south and west sides of the city, leading northwest 24 miles (39 km) to Bay Springs and southeast 28 miles (45 km) to Richton. According to the United States Census Bureau, Laurel has an area of 16.5 square miles (42.8 km2), of which 0.3 square miles (0.8 km2), or 1.81%, is covered by water. The city lies on a low ridge between Tallahala Creek to the east and Tallahoma Creek to the west. Tallahoma Creek joins Tallahala Creek south of Laurel, and Tallahala Creek continues south to join the Leaf River, part of the Pascagoula River watershed. Climate The climate in this area is characterized by hot, humid summers and generally mild to cool winters. According to the Köppen climate classification, Laurel has a humid subtropical climate, Cfa on climate maps. The area is also somewhat prone to tornadoes. On December 28, 1954, an F3 tornado tore directly through the city, injuring 25 people. Demographics 2020 census As of the 2020 census, Laurel had a population of 17,161. The median age was 36.3 years. 26.9% of residents were under the age of 18 and 16.9% of residents were 65 years of age or older. For every 100 females there were 88.4 males, and for every 100 females age 18 and over there were 84.0 males age 18 and over. 95.6% of residents lived in urban areas, while 4.4% lived in rural areas. There were 6,447 households in Laurel, of which 34.4% had children under the age of 18 living in them. Of all households, 30.5% were married-couple households, 20.6% were households with a male householder and no spouse or partner present, and 42.5% were households with a female householder and no spouse or partner present. About 31.3% of all households were made up of individuals and 14.1% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. There were 4,278 families in the city. There were 7,320 housing units, of which 11.9% were vacant. The homeowner vacancy rate was 1.3% and the rental vacancy rate was 8.5%. Government City government has a mayor-council form. The mayor is elected at-large. Council members are elected from single-member districts. The Mississippi Department of Mental Health South Mississippi State Hospital Crisis Intervention Center is in Laurel. Education Almost all of Laurel is in the Laurel School District. Small portions are in the Jones County School District. The portion in the Laurel School District is served by Laurel High School. Private schools: Laurel Christian School Laurel Christian High School St. John's Day School (affiliated with the Episcopal Church) Jones County is within the district served by the Jones College community college. Media WDAM-TV WHLT-TV WLAU (99.3 FM, SuperTalk Mississippi) The Laurel Leader-Call newspaper The Chronicle WXRR (104.5 FM, "Rock104") WBBN (95.9 FM, "B-95") Impact Laurel Infrastructure Amtrak's Crescent train connects Laurel with New York City; Philadelphia; Baltimore; Washington, D.C.; Charlotte, North Carolina; Atlanta; Birmingham, Alabama; and New Orleans. Laurel's Amtrak station is at 230 North Maple Street. Hattiesburg–Laurel Regional Airport is in an unincorporated area in Jones County near Moselle, 21 miles (34 km) southwest of Laurel. Major highways Interstate 59 U.S. Route 84 U.S. Route 11 Mississippi Highway 15 Notable people In popular culture In Tennessee Williams' play A Streetcar Named Desire, fictional Laurel native Blanche DuBois is known here as a "woman of loose morals", who after the loss of her family estate "Belle Reve", frequents the Hotel Flamingo as told to Stanley by the merchant Kiefaber. In an argument, Blanche tells Harold Mitchell she has brought many victims into her web, and calls the hotel the Tarantula Arms rather than the Hotel Flamingo. Mississippi-born singer-songwriter Steve Forbert released the song "Goin' Down To Laurel" as the first track on his 1978 debut album Alive on Arrival. Laurel is the setting for most of the renovation projects featured on Home Town. See also Laurel Black Cats, semi-professional baseball team References Further reading Victoria E. Bynum, The Free State of Jones: Mississippi's Longest Civil War (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2001, 2016) Alex Heard, The Eyes of Willie McGee: A Tragedy of Race, Sex and Secrets in the Jim Crow South (New York: Harper, 2011) Nollie W. Hickman, Mississippi Harvest: Lumbering in the Longleaf Pine Belt, 1840–1915 (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, new edition, 2009) Gilbert H. Hoffman and Tony Howe, Yellow Pine Capital: The Laurel, Mississippi Story (Toot Toot Publishing Company, 2010) Charles Marsh, The Last Days: A Son's Story of Sin and Segregation at the Dawn of a New South (New York: Basic Books, 2000) Cleveland Payne, The Oak Park Story: A Cultural History, 1928–1970 (National Oak Park High School Alumni Association, 1988) Cleveland Payne, Laurel: A History of the Black Community, 1882–1962 (Cleveland Payne, 1990) External links City of Laurel official website Scrapbook re: Laurel, Mississippi (MUM00404), owned by the University of Mississippi.