We get to do some fun things here at Historic Fort Steuben. We operate the historic fort, plan the concert series and operate our Christmas at the Fort event.

At the visitor center, we host a variety of events every year. We have the fort festival, quilt show, art show and a variety of exhibits and displays.

This September, we are sponsoring a photography show in the exhibit hall with the theme “Scenes, Places and People of the Ohio Valley.”

The exhibit showcases photography from all over the valley within a 65-mile radius. Special thanks are needed to Gina Judy, Dennis Jones and Garen DiBartolomeo, who coordinated the show and worked hard to make it happen.

Visitors to the show can expect to see some fantastic works that really show the people, places and things that make our valley unique. The exhibit officially opens Wednesday, with a reception from 3 p.m. to 5 p.m. at the visitor’s center, and will continue until Sept. 24.

I love looking at our familiar places here and recognizing that these places have beauty all their own. For instance, there is a photograph of the side of the BOP in Weirton as part of Weirton Steel.

This photograph is composed in such a way that it is beautiful to look at, but to me personally, it is history as a place that is no longer here. It also is meaningful to me as it was a place my family worked at for generations, a place where steel was made to build a nation and a place that literally loomed high in my memory of our town.

In that piece, the subject is a green wall of corrugated steel, but for us who remember, it was prosperity, joy, our landscape and life. That, to me, is what good art can do — insight an emotional reaction of complex feelings by the viewer. Perhaps another viewer may not feel the same way, and that is OK. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

We are extremely lucky here in our area because throughout history, we have had many talented artists who have called our area home.

Probably the most well-known in Steubenville, is certainly the artist Thomas Cole. I have written about Cole a few times in these articles and a section appears about him in my book, “Historic Tales of the Upper Ohio Valley.”

His story here in our area was such a surprise to me.

Cole was born in Bolton-Le-Moors, Lancashire, England, in 1801, and had immigrated to the United States in the late eighteen-teens. By 1819, his family was in Steubenville and his father set up a wallpaper business on Fourth Street.

The Cole sisters had what was called then a “Seminary for Young Ladies.” This establishment was not religious, but according to an advertisement in the Steubenville paper at the time, taught young women reading, writing, math, English grammar, geography, history, music, drawing, painting and sewing. Thomas helped at his father’s wallpaper company and with his sister’s school.

Cole historians believe, and I have written too, that it was in Steubenville that Cole decided to be an artist. His experience living and working in Steubenville helped him along the way to become a famous and celebrated American painter.

Another artist I have written a lot about over the years is Steubenville’s own Eliphalet Andrews. Andrews was born in Steubenville in 1835 and, after studying in Europe for a time, he moved back home and established his studio near Fourth and Slack streets.

Here, he painted some of his well-known early works. Andrews went on from Steubenville to be the director of the Corcoran Art Gallery in Washington, D.C., until 1902.

He painted in the immerging impressionist style, but he was primarily a portrait artist, painting presidents, dignitaries and posthumous works. He is most well-known for his portrait of Martha Washington that is in the White House today. It serves as her official portrait.

Andrew’s works are also in Steubenville. One can visit the main branch of the Public Library of Steubenville and Jefferson County on Fourth Street to see several of his paintings, or visit St. Paul’s Church to see his paintings of St. John and St. Paul.

Andrews passed away in 1915 in Washington, D.C., but his remains were brought home to Union Cemetery for burial. Andrews is a monumental figure in Steubenville’s artistic past.

Across the river in Weirton, one of my favorite artists is also one of my favorite historians: Mary Shakley Ferguson, who grew up in the Weirton area and could remember what life was like in the community before the area developed.

She wrote prolifically about the history of the area and could also paint. She made many art pieces, primarily of scenes that showed Holliday’s Cove from her youth.

My favorite piece she painted is one called Christmas at Cove Presbyterian Church 1908. This piece hangs in the church today and it shows not only the Cove Presbyterian Church, but the home Ferguson grew up in.

That home, along with a few others, was raised to build the Millsop Community Center in the early 1950s. Mary made other paintings that hang around town, most notably at the Weirton Museum and Cultural Center, where a few are on display.

Beauty is certainly in the eye of the beholder. And it is so exciting to see local art and photography made here locally and shown locally.

We are so blessed to have a great collection of artists who have called our community home and were inspired by what they have seen and done here and made it beautiful.

Join us during these next few weeks at the fort for our photography show. It’s a new tradition you won’t want to miss.

(Zuros is the executive director of Historic Fort Steuben)