Laurel Express hopes to capture Laurel’s milling history through the renaming of the annual event formerly known as the City of Laurel’s Main Street Festival.

After 13 years, the City of Laurel announced in April that it was passing the reins of sponsorship of the Main Street Festival to Laurel Express.

At that time, Jacqueline Lee, director of Laurel Express, said the local Main Street Program will be coordinating the festival, which is held annually in Laurel’s historic downtown.

This week, Laurel Express announced that throughout the course of the festival it will be working to build on the community’s strong history.

Therefore, the new name for the event will be The Loblolly Festival, which is expected to continue to bring together arts, crafts, music, food and heritage for a full day of family fun in downtown.

Lee said the 14th annual festival held in historic downtown Laurel has been renamed the Loblolly Festival, from the nickname for pine trees native to the Southeast.

In March 2008, the City of Laurel officially became designated as a Mississippi Main Street community with the establishment of Laurel Express, which is a non-profit organization created to promote downtown as the center of social and economic activity.

The City of Laurel has sponsored the Main Street Festival for 13 years and now has given the reins to the Laurel Express.

“We had discussed taking over the festival for 2008. However, because we didn’t get really set up as a Main Street group until April, it was too late to take over last year’s festival,” Lee said. “The festival will still be city supported, but we will just be handling the event.”

Lee said because Laurel Express is a Mississippi Main Street Project, they have been able to get assistance from the MMS. She said a group of MMS officials came to Laurel in April and met with members of Laurel Express to begin work on the festival.

“We just brainstormed in an effort to come up with a name to play up Laurel’s sawmill history,” Lee said. “This name change will provide the festival with a specific theme unique to the Laurel area.”

According to history, in 1893, a decade after the railroad opened the region for large-scale timber production, Eastman-Gardner & Company opened the first giant lumber mill.

“The Eastman-Gardiner mill was soon followed by many others, developing Laurel into a large milling town,” Lee said referring to the city’s history. “By the early 1900’s, Laurel milled and shipped more yellow pine than anywhere else in the world.”

Lee said Laurel Express hopes to capture Laurel’s milling history throughout the course of the festival.

“We want to make this an opportunity to explain our festival name and why it’s called the Loblolly Festival,” she said. “We want to be able to capture every educational opportunity and be able to tell Laurel’s story.”