In the 1930s when the Laurel Fork Valley was first timbered and the logging company built the three large log cabins and two smaller log cabins of what is now Camp Laurel. One of these cabins was a house for the superintendent and the two were used as bunkhouses for the men.
Later in the late 1940s and early 1950s the logging camp was bought from the logging company and used as a vacation retreat, but the owner also had rooster fighting and many other illegal operations. After some time he was raided and closed. He blamed the people in the valley for telling the officials, so he decided to dig a well so deep that no one in the valley would have water. The well at camp is 500 feet deep, and no one lost water, but many people in the valley have used the source when they did not have water.
When Rocky Gap Methodist Church Circuit was building a parsonage, the new minister Rev. Richard Hamblin and his family came to Rocky Gap but the parsonage was not ready. The Circuit rented a cabin at what is now Camp Laurel for the Minister and his family to live in until the parsonage was completed. One of the Rev. Hamblin’s daughters says that she cried when her family moved in to the cabin, but she held onto the porch rail and cried when they left.
After Rev. Hamblin move to the parsonage, he persuaded the Tazewell District to purchase the camp and use it is a church retreat. In 1954, the Tazewell District purchased the camp and held a contest in the local papers to name the camp. A young man sent in the name Camp Laurel and he won a suit from Ward’s Department Store in Tazewell when the name was selected as the official name for the Methodist Church Camp. Not long after the property was purchased, a contractor built the Dining Hall and the Bathhouse as a donation to Camp Laurel.
In 1957 the first when campers started coming to Camp Laurel, they looked for a place in the woods to build a place to worship. Rev. Hamblin said they kept going back to the site where the roosters were fought and this was selected as the site for their evening worships, thus the reason for the sign on the path to Vespers “A Gambling Site Turned To A Place Of Worship. “ The campers swam in the creek and there was a pond onsite where they fished. Activities also included crafts and hikes in the woods. In 1968, the house lot across the road was purchased bringing the Camp size to about 50 acres.
Three additional cabins have been built at Camp Laurel over the years to accommodate the growing number of campers. In the 1980s, the fence along the road was built as well as the Pavilion with a barbeque pit and chimney. Camp Laurel today looks very different than it did back then. The pond was filled in and a pool built sometime in 1968. The cabins have been improved over the years. There have been numerous additions to Camp Laurel over the years. The ‘Allenhouse’ and the playground were added in 1999. The Chapel was built by volunteers in 2001. The Handicap Bathroom was added in 2002 and the Screened Porch was added to the Dining Hall in 2003. Today over 2500 people use the Camp in a year. Church groups, youth retreats, clubs, family reunions, and even weddings are just some of the activities hosted at Camp Laurel each year.
