LAUREL — The Laurel Main Street is gearing up for this year’s Loblolly Festival.

Laurel Main Street executive director Jacqueline Lee said preparations have begun for the 2010 Loblolly Festival to be held Oct. 2 in downtown Laurel.

Lee said with the event date fast approaching, she and volunteers are putting the final touches on what they expect to be an event as successful as the 2009 premiere.

The Loblolly Festival takes place throughout downtown Laurel on Central Avenue, Magnolia Street and 5th Avenue.

Once a year every fall, the streets of downtown Laurel fill with arts vendors, the sounds of music and thousands of people.

After 13 years, the City of Laurel announced in April 2008 that it was passing the reins of sponsorship of the Main Street Festival to Laurel Express, which was the name of the local Main Street Program at that time.

The local group then began coordinating the festival, which is held annually in Laurel’s historic downtown.

Lee said the goal of the group was to capture Laurel’s milling history through the renaming of the annual event formerly known as the City of Laurel’s Main Street Festival.

Although last year was the group’s first time hosting the event, Lee said everything went smoothly and the group had a lot of help from volunteers.

The 14th annual Main Street festival was renamed last year to the Loblolly Festival, from the nickname for pine trees native to the Southeast.

“The Main Street Festival has been a staple among Laurel events for the past 13 years and has become the perfect opportunity to showcase downtown Laurel,” Lee said. “The Loblolly Festival will pay homage to Laurel’s history as a sawmill town.”

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.

By the early 1900’s, Laurel milled and shipped more yellow pine than anywhere else in the world. To commemorate Laurel’s lumber mill history, the Loblolly Festival featured the Paul Bunyan Lumberjack Show.

Officials reported that the 2009 Loblolly Festival filled downtown Laurel with more than 8,000 festival-goers that day.

In June, the Mississippi Main Street Association announced that Laurel Main Street had received a state award for its hosting of the city’s local Loblolly Festival.

The Laurel Main Street received an award for the Best Special Event.

“We were thrilled with the turnout last year, as well as the volunteer participation and support of the community,” Eric Roberts, Main Street president, said. “It was very exciting to see our downtown streets filled with people and we look forward to recreating that. The Loblolly Festival is one of the greatest means for Laurel Main Street to raise awareness and build pride in the downtown district every year.”

Lee said this year’s event should include some new and some familiar activities.

She said a gospel stage and an all-day Kids Zone have been added to this year’s lineup.

Some of the other activities taking place in downtown on Oct. 2 are the Sherry Babb Breast Cancer Walk, the Pooches on Parade Dog Contest, the First United Methodist Church Pumpkin Patch, and live music entertainment on two stages.

Lee said the new Kids Zone is being provided by the Laurel/Jones County Library, and all proceeds from the Kids Zone will go toward the operations of the library.

Along with the new events, Lee said, the group will continue to have its area 5K run and promote more than 100 arts, crafts and food vendors.

Lee said the early deadline for festival vendors to turn in applications has passed, but the Main Street office has chosen to extend it through Friday. After that date, the booth fee will raise from $50 to $75.

She said booths are available for arts, crafts, non-profit, retail, club and food vendors.

“Our festival is a great value to vendors and we want as many arts and crafts sellers to take advantage of that as possible,” Lee said.

In addition to the vendor layout, the festival committee is also finalizing the live music lineup, to be announced later this month.

Lee said local and regional acts will perform from 11 a.m.- 2 p.m. on the Main Stage located in the Laurel/Jones County Library parking lot between Commerce Street and Library Road. Gospel groups and acoustic local acts will take place from 10 a.m. - 2 p.m. on the stage located at the intersection of Magnolia and Oak Streets.

She said gospel groups interested in performing at the festival can contact the Main Street office.

Lee said the one-day festival serves as a fundraiser for Laurel Main Street, which supports preservation and economic development in historic downtown Laurel. Admission is free.

Following the Sherry Babb Breast Cancer Walk, the festival opens at 9:30 a.m. and will end at 5 p.m.

For more information about the Loblolly Festival, as well as vendor applications, visit the festival website at www.lobollyfestival.com

Hard copies of the application can also be picked up in the Laurel Main Street office at 409 Oak Street, suite 204.

Laurel Main Street is the City of Laurel’s Mississippi Main Street program, that officially began about two years ago. It is a non-profit organization associated with the Mississippi Main Street Association and the National Main Street Center.

The Main Street program is an economic development program of the National Trust for Historic Preservation.

Anyone needing more information about Laurel Main Street or its activities can call Lee at 601-433-3255.