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Writer's pictureKevin Leonard

History Crumbs

These short bits of history tend to pile up as I do more research on various topics. Unless otherwise credited, all quotes are from the Laurel Leader.


1870

In May, the new city of Laurel imposed its first fines on citizens. Both fines were $2. R.F. Redmiles was charged with breach of the peace and Henry Marshall permitted his hogs to run at large.



1888

David G. Weems built a 2-mile circular railroad track on the future site of the Laurel Race Course to run an experimental electric railway system. Coincidentally in 1888, the city of Laurel was looking to build an electric railway commuter service from Washington to Baltimore through Laurel. The Washington-to-Laurel route opened in 1902, terminating at Main Street and Sixth Ave., but Laurel to Baltimore was never completed. None of this, however, was related to the Weems railway undergoing trial runs barely a mile away at the other end of Main Street. The early results of his experiments with the railway system trials at Laurel garnered worldwide publicity, but it didn’t last. A catastrophic accident destroyed his equipment, and his company was forced to suspend the experiments. Weems donated his experimental electric locomotive to the Smithsonian Institution in the 1890s but no one at the Smithsonian knows if it was ever on display and there are no plans to do so.


1913

In March, 48 years after the end of the Civil War, a concert was performed at the Academy of Music in Laurel by “two old Confederates of Richmond.” According to the Leader, “the program, filled with songs and stories reminiscent of wartime and ante-bellum days, will be just the thing to stir their fighting blood and bring out a ‘rebel’ yell or Union cheer.” Also appearing at the concert was “the famous quartette of Old Time Southern Negroes [who] will be on hand to sing old Southern airs as they only can sing them.”


1918

In March, President Woodrow Wilson issued an Executive Order that amended a previous order issued in 1912. Wilson’s Executive Order read, in part, “employees in the executive civil service permanently residing in certain incorporated municipalities and adjacent to the District of Columbia to become candidates for or hold municipal office therein, is hereby amended so as to include the incorporated municipality of Laurel, Maryland, among those named in the order.” Curiously, in a letter from the Civil Service Commission to Attorney General Thomas Watt Gregory transmitting the Executive Order, someone wrote in the margin “I should worry file.”



Courtesy of Ft. Meade Museum

1923

Major Dwight Eisenhower, who commanded a tank battalion at Camp Meade (as did his friend Colonel George Patton), also became the coach of Camp Meade’s football team.


1946

In March, William F. Ryan, a former national checkers champion known as “The Boy Wonder,” was in Laurel at the invitation of the local Checkers Club. “The Checkers Club of Laurel has been in operation for the past nine years and is practically unknown to anyone except the select few who belong,” according to the Leader. The Boy Wonder amazed Laurel’s checkers elite by playing seven games simultaneously while blindfolded. He won every game.


1952

In November, the inaugural race of the Laurel International was won by the horse Wilwyn, representing England.


1967

In November, the Laurel Presbyterian Church held services “to deal with the current ‘hippie’ movement and the ‘mod’ form of expression,” according to the News Leader. The guest speaker, a reverend from Washington, DC, “will be sharing his thoughts about the occasion and many insights into the ‘hippie movement’ which no newspaper article can adequately define.” Later that same day, the First Methodist Church and the Laurel Presbyterian Church jointly sponsored “an ecumenical experiment: a mod worship service.” Music was provided by “a combo called the Persistent Ciphers, a group specializing in ‘Church-o-theque’ music (hymns set to rock music).” This service featured Rev. Stuart Ritchie delivering a sermon “based on the current emphasis of The Beatles. The message is entitled, ‘Sergeant Pepper’s Band’.”


1970

Delaney’s Irish Pizza Pub opened in the Montpelier Plaza with a new gimmick: a 4-foot leprechaun who mingled with the customers, told jokes, played various instruments, made balloon sculptures, performed magic tricks, and led the crowd in traditional Irish tunes. The leprechaun masterfully worked the room, and with good reason: he was Sammy Ross, a seasoned actor with a resume dating back to the 1940s that included Hollywood films and vaudeville. In 1969 the owner of the soon-to-open Irish Pizza Parlor saw him working as one of Santa’s elves at the Laurel Shopping Center and hired him on the spot to be Delaney’s leprechaun, Johnny O’Pal. Ross played Johnny O’Pal for 27 years, retiring in 1997 to his home in Baltimore. He lived for several years in a nursing home in Pikesville before succumbing to Alzheimer’s disease in 2010. He was 87 years old when he died.


1979

A proposal to construct a sports complex to house both the Baltimore Orioles and Colts, in Howard County north of Laurel, was unveiled in 1979. Megaplex, the development company, claimed to have a contract on 500 acres between Route 1 and I-95, and Route 175 and Meadowridge Road. Jumping into the fray, Prince Georges County Executive Larry Hogan, Sr., in a letter to Edward Bennett Williams, the new owner of the Orioles, then suggested building a “superdome” in the Laurel area, just off I-95, for the Orioles. Neither idea ever panned out.


1981

County Executive Lawrence Hogan, Sr. issued a proclamation designating the month of May as “Anti-Klan Month” in Prince George’s County. In issuing his proclamation, Hogan said, “Let us join together in a common aversion against the hate merchants who burn crosses, scrawl graffiti, and insult our neighbors. Let us extend a friendly hand of welcome and demonstrate, not only by our words, but by our actions, by the sincerity of our concern, and by the warmth of our neighborliness that the handful of racists among us are not typical of Prince George’s County. Let us demonstrate that people of all races, all creeds, all nationalities are welcome in Prince George’s County. But the Ku Klux Klan and other purveyors of hate are not.”



 


Kevin Leonard is a founding member of the Laurel History Boys and a two-time winner of the Maryland Delaware District of Columbia Press Association Journalism Award.

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