Editing St. Marys, Kansas (section)

==History==
[[File:POTTAWATOMIE_INDIAN_PAY_STATION.jpg|thumb|left|The [[Pottawatomie Indian Pay Station]] (1855)]]
St. Marys was laid out as a community in 1866.<ref>{{cite book | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Qi9cXyTWt9EC&pg=PA632 | title=Kansas: A Cyclopedia of State History, Volume 2 | publisher=Standard Publishing Company | author=Blackmar, Frank Wilson | year=1912 | pages=632}}</ref> It was named after the [[St. Mary's Mission (Kansas)|St. Mary's Mission]].<ref>{{cite book | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=5zdAAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA263 | title=Biennial Report of the Board of Directors of the Kansas State Historical Society | publisher=Kansas State Printing Plant | author=Kansas State Historical Society | year=1916 | pages=263}}</ref>

The oldest surviving mission building is the [[Pottawatomie Indian Pay Station]] which was built in 1855 and was used by government agents to pay an annuity to the [[Pottawatomie]] Indians who relocated to the area from the Great Lakes region. It was added to the [[National Register of Historic Places]] in 1972.

Starting in the 1980s, [[Traditionalist Catholics]] attending masses offered by [[Society of Saint Pius X]] began moving to St. Marys, attracted by the presence of the Society in the community as well as the relative isolation of the city from the modern world. Since then the number of residents in St. Marys affiliated with the SSPX has grown considerably, to the point where in 2020 that they formed the majority of the city's population. The growth of the SSPX has been a source of tension with some older residents who are not members of the movement and who do not share the Society's [[Social conservatism in the United States|socially conservative values]].<ref name="Green2020">{{cite web |last1=Green |first1=Emma |date=2020 |title=The Christian Withdrawal Experiment |url=https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2020/01/retreat-christian-soldiers/603043/ |access-date= |website=[[The Atlantic]] |publisher= |language=en}}</ref>