Lauraville

Location

North: Echodale Road
South: Argonne Road
East: Harford Road
West: Herring Run Road
Zip Code: 21214

Description

A leafy suburb situated in North East Baltimore with a wide variety of single family homes. Lauraville enjoys historic designation and this shows in the lovely late 19th and early 20th century homes. The neighborhood enjoys a county feel, with tree lined streets and open parkland surrounding the neighborhood. It is an easy walk to he Lauraville/Hamilton Main Street (Harford Road) which is fast becoming Baltimore’s latest restaurant row.

History

Though today's Lauraville was largely built up over the two decades between 1910 and 1930, the community has a history dating back at least from the late 18th Century. By 1818 a bridge across the Herring Run (at approximately the foot of today's service drive down to the run) was completed, and by 1819 the turnpike was open to Gunpowder Falls. Soon after the Civil War, Lauraville became an official village, with its own post office, and as a result its present name. Local residents who had lobbied for a local mail service were confronted when they discovered the Post Office's requirement for a village name as a mail destination. At a local meeting, chief supporter for the village post office, John Henry Keene, a local property owner who also operated a planing mill and lumber yard on the site of today's Bond Lumber, suggested that the community be named after his daughter Laura. Apparently that was acceptable to all present, for the area has been Lauraville since. In the last decades of the 19th century Lauraville became thoroughly self-sufficient. Blacksmiths and carpenters practiced their trades along Harford Road, and virtually any necessity could be brought locally for the house or farm. Truck farms covered the area and a wide variety of locally raised produce, as well as fresh meat, poultry, and dairy products were available. Weber's Park, a brewery, with adjoining picnic grounds and beer garden operated for many years along Harford Road in the Southern end of Lauraville, about opposite today's Overland Avenue. A fire station for the volunteer fire company was also built, on the site of the present modern engine house.