St. George, KS

St. George was platted in 1857, then moved about a mile in 1879 so the new railroad could pass through town. That little relocation is the key to the place: in Kansas, a rail line could redraw a community’s center in a hurry. The town’s history connects its name to George Chapman and the Gillaspie families, who arrived in the 1850s, while the current city still sits seven miles east of Manhattan in Pottawatomie County. The old elevator story adds another rail-era detail: one went up in 1879, and the present elevator followed in 1915. St. George is a town with its history written in the distance between two sites.