By 1811, Montpelier's Nicholas Snowden had established an early Snowden family grist mill at the fall line of the Patuxent River. In 1824, a cotton mill was built and leased to a Mr. Johnson, and the site also may have included a saw mill. After 1835, with the arrival of the railroad, Laurel was primed for growth, and the Patuxent Company, chartered in 1836, significantly expanded the mills. Laurel's early mill owners were related, and the Patuxent Company's original owners included Snowden's son-in-law Horace Capron, Theodore Jenkins, who owned Montpelier Mansion, A.E. Hall, W.C. Shaw, Snowden's widow Elizabeth, and O.C. Tiffany, Capron's cousin. The Tiffany manufacturing family remained involved into the 1870s. Many mill workers likely came from outlying farms and lived nearby across the river. The bridge connecting Laurel and Howard County was the primary crossing between the two for more than 100 years; known as the 9th Street Bridge, it washed away in 1899 and was rebuilt. By the time Hurricane Agnes washed out the bridge again in 1972, the larger C. Phillip Nicholas bridge farther downstream at Rt. 216 and 7th Street had become the main crossing, and the bridge was not rebuilt.