May 6, 2021
Members of the East Liverpool Masonic Lodge recently donated their time to clean up the grave site of Leonard Pickel. His grave is located in the Jethro Hollow area in the west end of East Liverpool. Pictured are (front) Bill Thorn, Tim Palmer, (back) Alexis McKinnon, Jim McKinnon, Jim Zimmerman, Dan Kirkbride, Keith McClester, Mark Wiley, Lance Angel and Jacob Dabler. In an article on the East Liverpool Historical Society website — written by Jenn Todd, a reporter for The Review, in 2006 — Pickel moved to the area known as Jethro in the 1830s. In the following years, he acquired much of the land in the Jethro community, erecting at least a dozen houses from which he collected rent. To ensure his name would remain etched in community history, Pickel laid out “L. Pickel’s Addition,” which stretched out in a long narrow section across the East Liverpool-Wellsville road into the section of Jethro Hollow and was home to at least 10 of his family members. Twenty-five years before he died, in 1885, Pickel built his own Jethro Hollow home with a sweeping view of the Ohio River. His was the first home to use natural gas as fuel after the first gas well was struck on his property. Pickel died in 1885 of what was thought to be a heart attack. His grave still stands in what was a family cemetery overlooking the Jethro community.