Laurelville

How Laurelville began

Laurelville was laid out in 1871 by William A. Albin and Jacob Riegel in Perry Township, on Salt Creek in the northwestern corner of Hocking County, as a planned stop on the Marietta and Cincinnati Railroad. It took its name from the mountain laurel that grew thick on the surrounding hills. The railroad turned it into a trading center for western Hocking County, drawing sawmills and dry-goods stores, and it later hosted county fairs. The village sits close to where Hocking, Pickaway, and Fairfield counties meet, and some of its surrounding farm and township history is shared with those neighbors; the village itself has stood in Hocking County's Perry Township since its founding.

Platted 1871-12-23, by John Albin, W. S. Albin and Solomon Riegel (1883 county history); Wikipedia names William A. Albin and Jacob Riegel.

Where the name comes from

The 1883 county history says Laurelville took its name from Laurel Creek, which empties into Salt Creek at the village; Wikipedia says it was named for the mountain laurel that grew on the surrounding hills. The creek and the township to the east are themselves named for the laurel bush.

Before the town

No village-specific accounts of Native villages, trails, or treaty events at Laurelville itself were found. But the immediate vicinity holds two documented Adena burial mounds: the Karshner Mound, on the second terrace above Salt Creek, and the George Deffenbaugh Mound, on a ridge northeast of the village. Both were built by people of the Adena culture (roughly 1000 BC to AD 400), based on their conical shape and terrace/ridge placement, and both were listed on the National Register of Historic Places on July 15, 1974. Neither has been professionally excavated (the Deffenbaugh mound was informally dug into before 1941). Hocking County as a whole was hunted and lived in by the Shawnee, Lenape (Delaware), and Wyandot in the 1600s and 1700s, and the Hocking River's name itself comes from the Delaware (Lenape) word for 'bottle,' after the bottle-shaped falls on the river six or seven miles northwest of Lancaster.

Nations recorded here: Adena culture, Shawnee, Lenape (Delaware), Wyandot.

• Karshner Mound (mound) — second terrace above Salt Creek, near Laurelville, Hocking County, Adena culture, c. 1000 BC - AD 400 (en.wikipedia.org)
• George Deffenbaugh Mound (mound) — ridgeline northeast of Laurelville, Hocking County, Adena culture, c. 1000 BC - AD 400 (en.wikipedia.org)

Timeline

1. 1871 — William A. Albin and Jacob Riegel laid out Laurelville in Perry Township as a planned commercial and rail stop.
2. 1871 onward — The Marietta and Cincinnati Railroad's arrival made Laurelville a stop for travelers and merchants, spurring sawmills and dry-goods businesses.
3. 1871-12-23 — John Albin, W. S. Albin and Solomon Riegel, helped by Rufus Dodson, lay out Laurelville on section 29 at the mouth of Laurel Creek in Perry Township; there are only three houses at first, and Allen Strous adds to it in 1876 and 1882.
4. 1872 — Solomon Riegel builds the first house and the first hotel, the Laurelville House; Jacob Friend later builds and keeps Friend's Hotel.
5. 1879-01-01 — A post office is established with John Bates as first postmaster, succeeded April 1 by Rufus Dodson.
6. 1883 — Laurelville has about 200 people, three general stores, a planing mill, a sawing mill, a flour mill of fifty barrels a day, three blacksmith shops and a harness shop, and has been one of the best lumber markets in the county.
7. 1883 — The village has two churches, a Cumberland Presbyterian and a Baptist, and a school; South Perry, laid out in 1838, and Buena Vista, laid out in 1848, are the township's other villages.
8. 1974 — The Karshner Mound and the George Deffenbaugh Mound, both near Laurelville, were listed on the National Register of Historic Places on the same day.
9. early 2020s — Laurelville's elementary school was demolished following local school district consolidation.
10. 2020 — Perry Township, which holds Laurelville, has 2,408 people in the census.

Stories

A mound nobody has ever dug

On a farm terrace above Salt Creek near Laurelville sits the Karshner Mound: 100 feet across and 28 feet high, one of the largest burial mounds left standing in Ohio. Farmers around it have plowed their fields for two centuries but left the mound itself untouched, and the trees and grass that cover it have kept it from washing away. No archaeologist has ever opened it. Its builders are inferred, not proven: its cone shape and its position on a terrace above a small stream match the pattern the Adena culture used elsewhere in the Hocking Valley between roughly 1000 BC and AD 400. A half mile or so northeast, a smaller mound named for George Deffenbaugh was less lucky — someone dug into its crest and sides sometime before 1941, and a stone mound nearby suggests people from the later Fort Ancient culture were still using the same ridge more than a thousand years after the first mound went up.

A railroad village on the edge of three counties

When Albin and Riegel platted Laurelville in 1871, they were betting on a rail line, and the bet paid off. The Marietta and Cincinnati Railroad's stop turned a crossroads into a trading town for western Hocking County: sawmills cut the surrounding hardwood, dry-goods stores served farm families, and the village became social center enough to host its own fairs. Laurelville sits close enough to the Hocking-Pickaway-Fairfield county corner that its farm neighborhood and school district have always drawn from more than one county, even though the platted village itself has stayed inside Hocking County's Perry Township.

Photographs

Local history sources: en.wikipedia.org · en.wikipedia.org · en.wikipedia.org · hocking.ohgenweb.org · commons.wikimedia.org · archive.org · en.wikipedia.org

Mostly private wells The water here

• Laurelville, Vlg Of55% of residentsGroundwater wells (2 wells)
• Ross County Water Co. Inc45% of residentsTeays Valley Aquifer (buried valley groundwater)

Fire and EMS stations (1)

Public libraries (1)

Money issues on the ballot since 2019: 2 of 2 passed.

Ballot issues

Elections for office

Winners in bold. Results from the county board of elections' official canvass unless marked.

Auditor of State record

• No fiscal caution, watch or emergency on the Auditor of State's lists.
• Agreed Upon Procedures, 2023 to 2024, released 2025-07-22

Source: Ohio EPA eDocument portal (edocpub.epa.ohio.gov), indexed 2026-10-14. Facilities are placed on the map from Ohio EPA's own map layers, EPA's Facility Registry, coordinates written in the filings, or a geocoded street address. A permit filed under a private person's name (most are household septic systems) is counted but never named, placed or linked; licenses for individual workers and open-burning notices are left out entirely.

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