Originally, the town was a barrio of the municipality of Bongabon, named San Esteban, after its patron saint, Stephen I of Hungary.

98 by then Governor-General Francis Burton Harrison, Laur was separated as its own town from Bongabon, and named from the wife of Gen. Manuel Tinio, Laureana.

Senators Benigno Aquino, Jr. and Jose W. Diokno were kept in solitary confinement for exactly thirty days in 1973 within Fort Magsaysay in Laur.

It is now a museum and houses the AFP Center for Human Rights Dialogue.

[6] Laur is located at the foothills of the Sierra Madre Mountains.