Thomas Parran, born in St. Leonard on February 12, 1860, became a Calvert County tax collector, served in the Maryland House of Delegates and Maryland State Senate, later became Clerk of the Court of Appeals in Annapolis, managed a tobacco farm near St. Leonard Creek, served one term in the United States House of Representatives, and was instrumental in the construction of the St. Leonard Polling House. In 1926, as the growing precinct needed a larger building for more than 400 registered voters, Calvert County bought a three-quarter acre parcel at the southwest corner of the village road intersection, and Parran had Norman Gray build the new polling house using lumber and supplies that Parran bought at his own expense from the nearby H.B. Trueman Lumber Company. The building stood there until 1930, when Harry B. Trueman swapped land with the county so it could be moved just south of his lumber company, and in 1993 it was moved a short distance north to county-owned land as part of the Garden of Remembrance. The polling house served voters from St. Leonard, Port Republic, Mutual, Wallville, Broomes Island, and Scientists Cliffs from 1926 through 1974. Its voters reflected the county’s population, with African American voters outnumbering White voters in the St. Leonard precinct during the 1920s and 1930s, women registering after the Nineteenth Amendment, and later demographic and party shifts bringing Democratic growth as White immigration increased after World War II. On election days from 1926 to 1974, voters entered through one door, gave their names to a polling judge who checked the precinct registration book, filled out paper ballots, and exited through the other door, while a cast iron stove warmed the room and campaigning, food, drink, and oyster scalds went on outside. Norman A. Gray, a St. Leonard builder born in 1888, constructed the polling house and other county school buildings, and was widely respected in the community. Garner T. "Pete" Grover, born in Calvert County in 1914, helped open the county’s first radio repair store in 1932, developed several St. Leonard businesses, preserved local history through his newspaper photo column, supported local sports, served as county commissioner from 1978 to 1986, and donated land for a volunteer fire department building in 1987. H. Gordon Trueman, born in 1916, led the Trueman Gas Company and H.B. Trueman Lumber Company, served for 30 years on the Democratic State Central Committee, and as a county commissioner from 1970 until 1981 helped support schools, parks, Calvert Memorial Hospital, a senior center, an elderly apartment complex, and the county jail.