Saint Marys
Saint Marys names 2 different subjects across the 6 encyclopedias on this shelf. Each is set out below.
Saint Marys a borough of Pennsylvania
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
a borough of Pennsylvania, in Elk co. It is on the Pennsylvania and the Pittsburg, Shawmut, and Northern railroads. It is in an important soft coal mining region and has deposits of natural gas and fire clay. Its chief industries are the manufacture of sewer pipes, lumber, chemicals, and electrical supplies. Large railroad shops are located here, and it is the seat of the academy of the St. Benedict Sisterhood. Pop. (1920) 6,967. (1910) 6,346; ST. MARY'S CANAL, an improved river channel connecting Lake Superior with Lake Huron. It flows N. E. for 40 miles on the frontier between the upper peninsula of Michigan and the Canadian Province of Ontario. There are two main channels divided by large islands and both expand into small lakes at some points 10 miles wide. There is a fall of 20 feet, the steepest descent being at St. Mary's Rapids, about a mile long, near the upper end. The improvement began in 1855 with locks built at a cost of $1,000,000, and was continued in 1870-81 and and 1889-96 by the United States Government. The traffic through the canal has attained great proportions in recent years, and improvements have been made on the Canadian side by the Canadian Government. ST. MARY'S RIVER, the channel connecting Lake Superior with Lake Huron, having more the character of a lake than a river. At Sault Ste. Marie, or St. Mary's Falls, there is a fall of 16 feet, and to enable vessels to avoid this a ship canal was built in 1855, and ST. MATTHEW. See MATTHEW. ST. MAURICE, a river of Canada, Province of Quebec, which enters the St. Lawrence at Three Rivers after a course of about 300 miles through fine scenery and extensive forests. About 22 miles above its mouth are fine falls 160 feet high. ST. MICHAEL. See ARCHANGEL. ST. MICHAEL'S MOUNT, a conical and isolated granite rock in Mount's Bay, Cornwall, England, 3 miles E. of Penzance. It communicates with the shore by a causeway 560 yards long, which, however, is covered with water 8 hours out of 12, and sometimes is impassable for two or three days together. The Mount is 230 feet high, is 5 furlongs in circumference, and is crowned by an old and picturesque castle-now used as a manorial residence-surmounted by a tower, on one angle of which there is a projecting stone lantern, popularly called "St. Michael's Chair." At the base of the N. or landward side of the Mount is a fishing village. The " "guarded mount" is said to have received its name from an apparition of St. Michael to some hermits; and Edward the Confessor founded on it a Benedictine priory, which in 1088 was annexed to the Abbey of Mont Saint-Michel in Normandy. After the Dissolution it became the residence of five families in turn, till it was sold in 1660 to its present proprietors.
Saint Marys a city of Ohio
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
a city of Ohio, in Auglaize co. It is on the Miami and Érie Canal, St. Marys river, and on the Lake Erie Erie and Western and the Toledo and Ohio Central railroads. It is an important industrial community, having manufactories of machinery, wool, lumber products, strawboard, paper, flour, cigars, etc. Pop. (1910) 5,732; (1920) 5,679.
What Has Changed in the Last Century
Collier's described St. Marys, Pennsylvania in 1921 as a soft-coal borough of 6,967 making sewer pipe and lumber; in 1994 it consolidated with Benzinger Township to become a city covering roughly 99 square miles, the largest in Pennsylvania by land area, and its economy now rests on powdered metals and carbon and graphite products rather than coal. St. Marys, Ohio, then a canal town of 5,679, has roughly 8,000 residents today, and the Miami and Erie Canal that Collier's lists as its waterway was abandoned as a commercial route in the 1920s, leaving Grand Lake St. Marys — built as a canal feeder reservoir — as the area's main draw. The St. Mary's Canal entry has aged furthest: the locks Collier's dated to 1855 and the 1889-96 works have all been replaced, most notably by the MacArthur Lock of 1943 and the Poe Lock of 1968, and a new heavy lock at Sault Ste. Marie has been under construction since 2020.
Written for this edition, 2026.