Maria Stein, OH

Maria Stein is an unincorporated community and census-designated place in Mercer County's Marion Township, with 1,067 residents in the 2020 census. The community sits at the center of Ohio's Land of the Cross-Tipped Churches, a rural German-Catholic landscape shaped by Father Francis de Sales Brunner and the Missionaries of the Precious Blood. The Maria Stein Shrine of the Holy Relics holds more than 1,200 relics, and Marion Local High School ties the place to the surrounding school communities. The town's look is all about the church towers, farm roads, and the old convent-and-parish network spread across western Ohio.

Grand Lake St. Marys is about five miles south, but the main local pull is the cluster of churches, chapels, schools, and family farms around Maria Stein. The church calendar and school year still shape the roads around it. The place carries a lot of history in a small footprint. Maria Stein is a Mercer County community where German settlement, Catholic parishes, and a very recognizable skyline all meet.