Piketon, OH

Piketon sits along the Scioto River in Pike County, a village of 2,111 people in the 2020 census with a past much larger than its street grid. It was first called Jefferson and served as the county seat from 1815 to 1845, before the seat moved to Waverly. The village is also home to the Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant site, selected in 1952 and built to enrich uranium for weapons and later commercial nuclear power. That industrial history puts Piketon in the national story whether or not you are looking for it.

Today, the Portsmouth site is in cleanup and decommissioning, with the Department of Energy maintaining a large complex of former plant and centrifuge facilities near the village. Piketon’s everyday calendar has a different scale: the Pike County Fairgrounds, Scioto Valley schools, the local library, and the annual Pike County Dogwood Festival, which brings food, crafts, bluegrass, and a parade in April. The contrast is what makes Piketon distinctive. One side of town carries Cold War machinery and environmental work; the other carries river, school, fairground, and dogwood traditions. It is a southern Ohio village with both a national industrial footprint and a very local springtime rhythm.