One Mississippi town packed 369 century-old buildings into 161 walkable acres: Officials say

Wikimedia Commons/Ahill.laurel
Laurel’s lumber money still shows
You can walk the whole thing in an afternoon. Laurel’s Historic District sits near the center of town, 161 acres of oak-lined streets where 369 buildings stand almost exactly as they did a century ago. Most went up between 1900 and 1937, back when yellow pine money flowed through here like water. The National Register of Historic Places added the district in 1987, but the real draw is how tight everything sits. One block rolls into the next, and every turn gives you something new to look at. Wikimedia Commons/Paul Lowry
Lumber barons from Iowa started it all
Three families named Eastman, Gardiner, and Rogers came down from Clinton, Iowa, in the 1890s to run sawmills in the Piney Woods. Yellow pine made them rich, and they spent that money right here. Starting in 1899, they put up grand homes along 5th Avenue, one after another. Smaller cottages and bungalows filled the side streets soon after. Locals started calling it “The City Beautiful,” and the nickname stuck through the timber era’s end around 1937. Shutterstock
Queen Anne meets Craftsman on the same block
The homes cover a range of styles you rarely see packed into one district. Colonial Revival sits next to Craftsman. Queen Anne porches face Shingle-style rooflines across the street. Prairie and Italianate Renaissance Revival designs show up too. One 1910 Italianate house went up in Roman brick, longer and thinner than standard brick, trimmed in terra cotta. That kind of variety is hard to find anywhere in the South, and in Mississippi, there’s nothing else like it. Wikimedia Commons/Paul Lowry
Grab the free brochure and walk 24 stops
A free self-guided walking tour brochure maps out 24 spots across the district. You can pick one up at the Laurel Welcome Center or the Lauren Rogers Museum of Art and go at your own pace. Each stop points out architectural details you’d walk right past otherwise, plus stories about the families who built here. The oak-shaded streets and small parks along the way give you plenty of reasons to slow down between stops. Flickr/Paul Lowry
Mississippi’s first art museum opened in 1923
The Lauren Rogers Museum of Art sits right in the middle of the district. It opened in 1923, making it the first art museum in the entire state.

New Orleans architect Rathbone DeBuys designed the Georgian Revival building, and noted craftsman Samuel Yellin handled the ironwork inside. Admission costs nothing, and the museum stays open six days a week. A short film near the entrance tells the story of Laurel and the family that made the museum possible. Wikimedia Commons/MauraWen
500 Native American baskets started the collection
The museum holds one of the country’s finest collections of Native American baskets. Catherine Marshall Gardiner gave nearly 500 of them in 1923, a collection she had built since around 1900. The baskets represent more than 40 North American tribes, and the weaving and designs vary wildly from piece to piece. The museum still adds to the collection today, with a focus on contemporary Choctaw basketry that honors the region’s Native heritage. Wikimedia Commons/Paul Lowry
Winslow Homer paintings in small-town Mississippi
Four other collections fill the galleries beyond the basketry. You’ll find American art, European paintings, Japanese woodblock prints, and British Georgian silver spread across the rooms. Works by Winslow Homer, Albert Bierstadt, and Jean-Francois Millet hang on the walls, along with glass pieces by Dale Chihuly. A marble staircase anchors the interior and stops most people mid-step. For a town of this size, the depth of what’s inside catches you off guard. Wikimedia Commons/Paul Lowry
Hunt for murals on Central Avenue
Bright public murals cover walls all through downtown Laurel. Local and visiting artists painted them, and the best ones line Central Avenue and North 6th Avenue. They celebrate the town’s artistic roots and its recent revival, and each one gives you a reason to pull out your phone. Tracking them down takes you into the quieter corners of town you’d skip otherwise. It’s a low-key way to stretch your legs between the museum and the historic homes. Shutterstock
The Arabian Theatre’s neon sign still glows at night
The Laurel Little Theatre has put on community plays and musicals since 1961. Performances happen inside the historic Arabian Theatre in downtown Laurel, and the building’s neon Arabian sign lights up the street after dark. The community theatre has held its place in the local arts scene for decades, drawing audiences from across the Piney Woods. If your visit lines up with a show, the setting alone makes it worth the ticket. Wikimedia Commons/Paul Lowry
An 1800s village hides inside a pecan grove
A few miles south of downtown, Landrum’s Homestead & Village recreates life in the late 1800s across 30 acres tucked inside a pecan grove.

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More than 85 buildings, exhibits, and displays fill the grounds. You can walk through a general store, blacksmith shop, schoolhouse, chapel, and gristmill. Wagon rides loop through the property, farm animals roam the pens, and a maze keeps kids busy. The whole place feels like stepping out of the present for an hour or two. Wikimedia Commons/Michlaovic
Parks the timber families planted still shade the town
The lumber families didn’t just build homes. They laid out broad avenues and public parks that still tie the district together. Pinehurst Park sits downtown on the ground where the grand Pinehurst Hotel once stood. A few blocks away, the Leontyne Price Musical Park honors the famous opera singer who grew up here. Shaded lawns and quiet corners give you spots to sit and rest between stops, and the canopy keeps the Mississippi heat in check. Wikimedia Commons/Paul Lowry
Thousands of donated artifacts honor American veterans
The Veterans Memorial Museum sits near the edge of the historic district. Founded in 1996, it moved into a roughly 6,000-square-foot permanent home in 2005. Thousands of military artifacts and pieces of memorabilia fill the space, and every single item came from veterans and their families, donated from the local level to around the world. The displays trace the story of American service and sacrifice, and they round out a full day of history in Laurel. Wikimedia Commons/Quentin Melson
Explore Laurel’s Historic District in Mississippi
You can start your visit at the Lauren Rogers Museum of Art, 565 N. 5th Ave., where admission is free and the doors open Tuesday through Saturday from 10 a.m. to 4:45 p.m. and Sunday from 1 to 4 p.m. Grab the free walking tour brochure there or at the Laurel-Jones County Visitors Center on Leontyne Price Blvd. Landrum’s Homestead & Village sits a few miles south at 1356 MS Highway 15, open Thursday through Saturday. Laurel is about two hours from Jackson, Mobile, New Orleans, and Biloxi. This article was created with AI assistance and human editing. Read more from this brand:

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The post One Mississippi town packed 369 century-old buildings into 161 walkable acres appeared first on When In Your State.