The second episode of Lost Laurel on Laurel TV is now on YouTube! It’s a special Halloween episode, which Laurel TV has been airing locally every day this week at 4PM on their network.
Some of the highlights:
- We get to meet Rich Blankenship, who operates Laurel’s House of Horror in the old Cinema at Laurel Shopping Center, and learn the history behind the movie theater and its recently-replaced marquee.
- We touch on some of the ghosts of buildings past, including Fyffe’s Service Center.
- Learn about the allegedly haunted Bay ‘n Surf restaurant, and the bizarre murder that may have inspired the spooky stories.
- A tragedy at the 1980 Laurel Centre Mall Halloween Costume Contest, in which yours truly may or may not have inadvertently scared beloved Congresswoman Gladys Noon Spellman to death.
- Laurel Leader “History Matters” columnist Kevin Leonard gives us the complete history of the notoriously creepy Laurel Sanitarium.
- Was/is the Avondale Mill site haunted?
- The spectre of the Ninth Street Bridge, and James Ladenburg‘s amazing miniature replica of it.
This was a fun episode to produce, and it’s wonderful to see some effects enhancements starting to come into play now that we’re getting the hang of things.
Now that there are two shows, one of the recurring themes you might pick up on throughout the series is the opening title graphic. For each episode, I’ve designed a “newspaper” front page in the style of the Laurel Leader from when I grew up in the 80s. It sets the stage for whatever the theme will be, and makes for a functional way of cataloging the episodes.
It’s one more way to have fun with this project, and as I get further into it, look for some even “older” front page newspaper treatments to emerge. 😉
We’re already planning next month’s episode, which will actually be a two-part series covering the building of Laurel Shopping Center—and there are lots of great stories and photos to be included in that one.
Special thanks to Tyler Baldwin for her hard work and patience, and for also fixing and re-uploading the earlier Main Street episode, which is available here:
Lost Laurel 
Richard, great job on the Halloween issue-I am the ex-bartender from the Bay-N-Surf, so thank you for the reporting on the owners, and the, “true story”. I have never seen the actual newspaper clipping of the event and found it highly interesting. On another note, your posts always touch on something I am familiar with concerning Laurel-Gladys Spellman sent me military history books and promised me an appointment to West Point when I went to military school. My SAT’s were never high enough to even be considered, so I never asked her to fulfill the promise. Anyway, I also recognized ‘Jimmy” when you guys went to the old Laurel Mall-I know we partied together!! One last note-any thoughts (or has it been done already?) on how Laurel figured into the Civil War? I am working on a masters in Civil War mil. history, and ran across the story of Jeb Stuart’s ride through MD in the summer of 1864-it said he went through Laurel. When we moved to Laurel in 1975 (I was 10) it seems there was a Laurel Hotel on the corner of US Rt 1 and Main St. that rumor had it, George Washington and Abe Lincoln frequented for the prostitutes there? I never saw that building as supposedly it was torn down just before we moved to town.
Well, keep up the great work! by the way, I know live in AZ but love reminiscing about the old days.
Sincerely,
Rick Byrd.