20th century
In 1902, the City and Suburban Railway with the City and Suburban and Washington, Berwyn, and Laurel railway started single-line electric trolley service.
The Laurel Sanitarium was built in 1905 on a 163-acre (0.66 km2) farm that comprised what is now Laurel Lakes. The facility's purpose was to care for people with nervous diseases, alcohol, and drug addiction. Five buildings that were joined to a central administration building included 8-, 14-, 30-, and 36-room facilities for men and women.
Laurel Park Racecourse, a thoroughbred racetrack, opened in 1911 and remains in operation. In the book Seabiscuit: An American Legend, Laurel is mentioned several times as an important horse racing venue. Laurel also hosted a horse trotter (harness racing) track named Freestate Raceway from 1948 to 1990; it was located in Howard County on the west side of US Route 1, south of Savage in an area that as of 2026 includes a CarMax dealership, Weis supermarket, and strip mall.
In March 1912, the city agreed to take out $35,000 in loans to build its first sewer system, with twelve miles of line that terminated by dumping into the Patuxent River.
In February 1913, Laurel was a stopping point in the suffrage hike led by Rosalie Gardiner Jones. She was joined by a Laurel-based colored women's suffrage group and sent a parcel with a flag and message ahead to President-elect Wilson.
Board track racing came to Laurel in 1925 when a 1.125-mile (1.811 km) wood oval track was built by Jack Prince and featured 48-degree banked turns. The Washington-Baltimore automobile speedway was short-lived, with featured races of 16 drivers at a time. Despite crowds of up to 30,000, receipts did not cover the $400,000 cost of building the track on the 364-acre (147 ha) Avondale property, which fell into receivership in 1926.
Natural gas service was extended to the community in 1929.
In 1931, "Angy Gerrin" built a 7,000-seat amphitheater next to the Duvall Farm between Laurel Park and Route One for an outdoor boxing venue. His company, Mid City Boxing Club Inc, held several events with low turnouts and receipts confiscated by local police. It was sold the same year to C.E. Cornell, who called it "Twin Cities Arena" or "Mid City Arena". The arena was active through 1932, with the entire delegation of the National Boxing Association attending a fight with Governor Ritchie in attendance. After watching the match and calling a fight to be halted in five rounds, the delegation announced efforts to drop junior lightweight and junior welterweight classes, to discourage matches between young opponents. Operations ceased by the end of the 1933 season, at the peak of the Depression.
Prohibition was repealed in 1934. Wasting little time, the Prince Georges Brewing Company planned a $500,000 brewery on 100 acres (40 ha) next to Laurel Park, but did not follow through.
In 1954, Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory built its campus west of Laurel in Howard County, using a Laurel address.
By 1960, Laurel anticipated massive growth from Fort Meade and NSA. The town still used the Patuxent River to drain sewage, and filed urban grants for water and sewage infrastructure. 5,000 houses were planned in the adjacent 1,200-acre Maryland City development. City Planner Harry Susini anticipated that the National Capitol Planning Commission would use clustered development to prevent tightly massed population in Laurel by 2000.
In the late 1960s, the county was at the peak of racial tensions. The situation peaked in Laurel in July 1967 when four men and a juvenile, affiliated with the Ku Klux Klan, attempted to burn St. Mark's United Methodist Church and then a private residence in the predominantly African-American neighborhood of the Grove, prompting protests and police blockades. Due to cross-burning incidents, a KKK march, and several arsons and suspected arsons, temporary police barricades were erected throughout late July to prevent white residents from entering the Grove.
In August 1967, it was announced that the city would re-purchase a privately-owned swimming pool, which had been sold to a private club in 1949. The pool, which had only been available to white residents, was to be operated as an integrated public facility open to all.
On May 15, 1972, Governor George Wallace of Alabama, running for the presidential nomination of the Democratic Party, was campaigning at a rally in the parking lot of Laurel Shopping Center, near what is today a Bank of America branch, when he was shot and paralyzed by Arthur Bremer, an out-of-work janitor (see An Assassin's Diary).
On June 22, 1972, Laurel was hit by Hurricane Agnes, which caused the greatest flooding ever recorded in Maryland. Several bridges were destroyed, and the nearby T. Howard Duckett Dam at Rocky Gorge Reservoir was at capacity and posed a huge threat.
In 1975, the city council passed ordinances to create a historic district around Main Street.
In 1982, developer Kingdon Gould III bought 3,539 acres of Laurel property (539 in North Laurel) in two deals for $15 million. The largest parcel lies between Laurel and Beltsville, and is being developed under the name Konterra, buoyed by access to major highways via the construction of Maryland Route 200.
The Elizabeth House, a nonprofit food pantry and soup kitchen, was founded in 1988 to serve low-income residents of the area. This later grew to include emergency financial aid and transportation.
A former 1840s mill workers' home on the northeast corner of 9th and Main Streets was renovated and opened as the Laurel Museum on May 1, 1996. It features exhibits that highlight the history of Laurel and its citizens. A gift shop is available, and museum admission is free. The museum's John Calder Brennan Library is open to researchers by appointment.
