Laurel: Where Three Railroads Met

Laurel began as a farming community called Carlton before the Northern Pacific Railroad arrived in eighteen eighty-two. It was renamed Laurel by eighteen eighty-three, and a post office opened in eighteen eighty-six. What turned Laurel into something more than a whistle-stop was geography.

When the Rocky Fork Railroad built a branch line south to the Red Lodge coal fields in eighteen eighty-nine, it connected at Laurel. Then the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy and the Great Northern both converged here as well, and by nineteen fourteen Laurel had become the leading railroad terminal between Saint Paul, Minnesota, and Seattle, Washington. The Northern Pacific alone established its largest terminal yards between Minneapolis and the Pacific Coast right here.

A third industry arrived in nineteen twenty-nine when an oil refinery went up on the edge of town, opening the following year and eventually operating under the Farmers Union Central Exchange banner. Railroads, wheat, and petroleum made Laurel more industrially consequential than its small population suggested. The historic downtown districts still reflect that rail era, a compact grid of commercial brick built for workers who serviced trains and not tourists.