Eric G. Hall

Dinosaur Park is a park located in the 13200 block of Mid-Atlantic Boulevard, near Laurel and Muirkirk, Maryland, and operated by the Prince George's County Department of Parks and Recreation. The park features a fenced area where visitors can join paleontologists and volunteers in searching for early Cretaceous fossils. The park also has an interpretive garden with plants and information signs. The park is in the approximate location of discoveries of Astrodon teeth and bones as early as the 19th century.In the 18th and 19th centuries, the clays of the Muirkirk Deposit in Prince George's County, Maryland were mined for siderite, or iron ore. Iron furnaces located throughout the region melted down siderite to produce iron and steel used in construction and manufacturing. In 1858, African-American miners working in open pit mines were the first to discover dinosaur fossils in Maryland.Among the first scientists to explore the Muirkirk Deposit was Maryland state geologist Phillip Thomas Tyson. He brought some of the strange bones discovered in the iron mines to a meeting of the Maryland Academy of Sciences in 1859, where his colleagues identified them as dinosaurs. Paleontologist Othniel Charles Marsh was also interested in Maryland fossils. In the winter of 1887, he sent John Bell Hatcher to search the iron mines. Hatcher recovered hundreds of fossils, including the remains of ancient turtles and crocodiles. In the 1890s, Smithsonian Institution scientists Charles Gilmore and Arthur Bibbins also visited Prince George's County, uncovering dinosaur teeth and other fossils that were added to the Smithsonian collection.In December 1995, the Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission acquired 22 acres near Laurel, encompassing several Muirkirk Deposit exposure sites. The park protects these sites from development and unrestricted collecting, and provides an outdoor laboratory where the public can work alongside professional and amateur paleontologists to help uncover the past.

The Gude House is a historic house located in Laurel, Maryland in Prince George's, Maryland, United States. The property was originally part of Snowden's New Birmingham Manor. Mary Tyson and her sisters, who had opened a seminary in Washington, D.C. in the 1800s, opened their second ("Alnwick") seminary in southwest Laurel in 1855 on part of the Snowden property they purchased, and the Society of Friends provided a non-secular curriculum. This three-story brick building was featured in an 1852 lithograph; fire destroyed the seminary building in 1920.The three-story brick building with a kitchen addition and second wing were built in 1856 by John D. McPherson who bought 50 acres of land just south of the Alnwick Seminary building from the Tyson sisters. In 1866 the property was expanded with 8 acres purchased from Samuel Register. In 1875, French horticulturalist Armand Jardin purchased the property, living onsite until 1904. In 1926, after a succession of short-term owners, William Gude purchased and restored the property which remained in his family until 1980. Gude was a greenhouse and retail flower shop owner. The property was subdivided in 1988 for commercial office parks at Laurel Lakes with 1.3 acres and the Gude house remaining.

Abraham Hall, constructed in 1889, is located on the northeast side of Old Muirkirk Road in the center of the historic African American community of Rossville, a section of Prince George's County, Maryland near Beltsville. It was constructed by the Benevolent Sons and Daughters of Abraham, an African American society that was established for the social welfare of its members. Originally known as Rebecca Lodge #6 of the Benevolent Sons and Daughters of Abraham, the building was constructed by John W. Jackson in 1889 in the burgeoning community of Rossville. Abraham Hall, an excellent example of a multi-purpose building associated with African Americans, served as a meeting hall, a house of worship, a school, and a social hall for African Americans living in a segregated society. The lodge hall functioned as the community black school, until a Rosenwald School was built in 1922.The structure is set back from the road on a 3.85-acre (1.56 ha) grassy lot with mature trees. It is a three-bay, two-story gable front frame lodge building with a brick foundation, wood lap siding with cornerboards, and a shake roof with a boxed cornice. A brick chimney rises from the northwest slope of the roof. Both the interior and exterior of the building were carefully restored between 1986 and 1991 using original materials or in-kind replacements.It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2005.

Muirkirk is a passenger rail station on the MARC Camden Line between the District of Columbia's Washington Union Station and Baltimore's Camden Station. It is located at 7012-B Muirkirk Road over the bridge that carries Muirkirk Road above both the Camden Line and US 1. Muirkirk station consists of two platforms with open shelters on both sides of the former Baltimore and Ohio Railroad Washington Division line. A concrete open storm drain runs beneath the northbound platform. Three pedestrian walkways cross over the storm drain as well as the tracks. US 1 runs behind the southbound platform which is protected by guard rails and a chain-link fence.

University of Maryland Laurel Medical Center is a free-standing emergency care facility that also provides outpatient clinical and surgical services. Located in unincorporated Prince George's County, Maryland, near Laurel, it previously served as a community hospital.

Oaklands or Contee was a slave plantation owned by the Snowden family, and remains as a historic home surrounded by residential development.

Oseh Shalom is a Reconstructionist synagogue in Laurel, Maryland, in the United States. It is the only synagogue in Laurel, and one of five Reconstructionist synagogues in the Baltimore-Washington Metropolitan Area. Members of the community hail from many nearby areas, including Howard, Montgomery, Prince George's, and Anne Arundel counties. Oseh Shalom was founded in 1966, and affiliated with the Reconstructionist movement in 1979. Oseh Shalom is known for its distinctive synagogue building, with its blue "wings" and glowing dome. Weekly Sabbath tefillah services, religious school, adult education, High Holy Day and festival services and numerous other programs occur onsite. Oseh Shalom has a vibrant program for children from birth to Bar/Bat Mitzvah and beyond. Daria and Josh Jacobs Velde, a married team of rabbis, became the congregation's rabbis in August 2017. Cantor Charlie Bernhardt has been with Oseh Shalom since 1983.

Muirkirk is an unincorporated community in northern Prince George's County, Maryland, United States, located between Baltimore and Washington in the central part of the state.It is located along U.S. Route 1 between Beltsville and Laurel. It has a stop on the MARC commuter rail (on the Camden line), and hosts a dinosaur park.

The Laurel Sanitarium for Nervous and Mental Diseases was a prominent sanitarium, and later a women's nursing home, and landmark building along U.S. Route 1 in Laurel, Maryland. The sanitarium was founded in 1905 by Dr. Jesse C. Coggins and Dr. Cornelius DeWeese to treat patients with mental illness and addiction. It was converted to a women's nursing home in 1950. The facility closed after Coggins' death in 1963, and was demolished by controlled fire in 1964.

Konterra is an unincorporated area and census-designated place (CDP) in Prince George's County, Maryland, United States. The population was 3,158 at the 2020 census.Parts of Konterra were previously defined by the U.S. Census Bureau as being in the West Laurel census-designated place.

South Laurel is an unincorporated area and census-designated place (CDP) in Prince George's County, Maryland, United States. Per the 2020 census, the population was 29,602.

The Washington Suburban Sanitary Commission (WSSC Water) is a bi-county political subdivision of the State of Maryland that provides safe drinking water and wastewater treatment for Montgomery and Prince George's Counties in Maryland except for a few cities in both counties that continue to operate their own water facilities. The Commission is one of the largest water and wastewater utilities in the United States. WSSC Water serves about 1.9 million people in an approximately 1,000-square-mile (2,600 km2) area. It owns and manages over 11,000 miles (18,000 km) of water and sewer mains.