Turned porch supports, elaborately carved brackets, a baluster frieze, and decorative cresting along the roofline ornament this gable-front-and-wing residence. Railroads brought these precut architectural elements to small towns along their tracks, allowing builders to personalize homes. According to local sources, Edgar Camp built this home in old Laurel, likely as part of his real estate business. Abraham and Carrie Erb purchased the house circa 1907, cutting it in two to transport it to their farm adjacent to the recently platted new Laurel. The Erbs set the home onto a cast concrete block foundation. Simple and inexpensive to manufacture, cast concrete was virtually unheard of in 1900, but the decorative material had become popular soon after, particularly for foundations. During his residence, Abraham farmed and briefly owned an implement store. Carrie was active in the local woman’s club, a moving force behind creating Laurel’s library. After Abraham’s untimely death in 1916, Carrie hired a man to work the farm; the bunkhouse dates from that time. She also took a job directing the new library, which she had helped found. Even so, Carrie had to rent rooms to make ends meet, particularly during the depression. In 1930, she and her two children shared the home with a railroad worker, his wife, and their seven children, ages seven to six months. Carrie retired from the library at age seventy-seven in 1951. She resided here until her death in 1966. Family members continued to live here until 2002.
]]>Despite the crippling effects of the Great Depression, American auto tourists took to the roads in record numbers in the 1930s. To lure these tourists to Montana, the state highway department’s Robert Fletcher developed an ambitious promotional program. It included publication of the first “official” highway map in 1934, the creation of a highway historical marker program in 1935, and construction of roadside picnic areas, information centers, and ports-of-entry stations. Fletcher also envisioned a chain of roadside museums, constructed by the highway department but staffed and maintained by local chambers of commerce. Although several communities along U.S. Highways 10 and 91 expressed interest, the Laurel Roadside Museum was the only museum completed under the program. Constructed in 1938, the Rustic style frame and log building housed the police station in one room and the museum, which featured fossils, dioramas, and a buffalo head mount, in the other. The Laurel Commercial Club hired Crow Indian Max Big Man to staff the museum and offer daily presentations on Indian life to tourists. The seasonal museum operated only four years before World War II led to its closure.
]]>The Northern Pacific Railroad steamed through the Yellowstone Basin in 1883, passing the small agricultural community of Carlton. The town was renamed Laurel, and a post office opened there in 1886. When the Rocky Fork Railroad, an affiliate of the Northern Pacific, built a branch line to Red Lodge in 1889, it platted a new townsite at the junction nearby and Laurel residents relocated. The new Laurel was laid out as a typical railroad T-town; businesses sprang up along Main Street, parallel to the tracks. The railroad and a sugar beet processing plant helped assure permanency, and in 1906, Laurel incorporated. The Laurel Sentinel proudly invited the world to “watch Laurel grow” while boosters urged investors to come to Laurel where “a sure thing” awaited them. By 1914, the Northern Pacific; Chicago, Burlington and Quincy; and the Great Northern railroads converged at Laurel. The town became the leading terminal between St. Paul, Minnesota, and Seattle, Washington. From 1910 to 1920, Laurel’s population nearly tripled. An oil refinery, built in 1929, added a third industry to railroads and agriculture, bolstering the economy during the depressed 1930s. Laurel’s downtown evolved accordingly, stretching to the east and west, spanning the period from 1906 to 1960. The district’s architectural patterns visually document Laurel’s evolution. Early boomtown false fronts represent the heart of the district. Western Commercial style brick storefronts and architect-designed business blocks illustrate the town’s emerging stability. Post-World War II modern structures at the district’s edges underscore how transportation, industry, and agriculture continued to fuel local commerce.
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