Sternwheelers sit moored at the Ohio River Levee Monday in anticipation of the Ohio River Sternwheel Festival, which runs Friday through Sunday. (Photo by Art Smith)

MARIETTA — A line of sternwheelers could be seen moored at the Ohio River Levee in Marietta Monday and Tuesday.

The boats and their owners came to town ahead of the 48th annual Ohio River Sternwheel Festival this weekend.

One of the boats on the levee Tuesday afternoon was the Joe S. The green and white boat was built in the 1980s, which is young for a sternwheeler, according to owner C.R. Neale.

“Our family bought a business in the 1960s” that had Joe S. in the name and “that was an original name of two separate sternwheelers in the past,” Neale said about the boat’s name.

He said he and his wife bought the boat in 2021 and named it Joe S. in honor of the business and the older sternwheelers.

C.R. Neale, left, and his wife Ramsey Neale, right, scrub their sternwheeler, the Joe S., Tuesday afternoon. (Photo by Michelle Dillon)

“We’re actually in the boating business … We’ve always wanted a sternwheeler,” Neale said about why he and his wife bought the boat.

He said they especially wanted a sternwheeler that looked like the ones that used to push bargers in the past, which the Joe S. is.

Neale has come to the Ohio River Sternwheel Festival for a long time, he said.

“My family’s come to the (festival) probably ever since it started,” he said.

He likes coming to the festival because of “the camaraderie … the boats, it’s kind of like a family reunion,” Neale said.

The Joe S., a sternwheeler built in 1986 and owned by C.R. Neale and Ramsey Neale, sits docked at the Marietta Levee Tuesday afternoon. (Photo by Michelle Dillon)

He also said it is great to meet up with old friends and to meet new ones.

Neale’s wife Ramsey Neale agrees.

“I’ve met a lot of new friends through (my husband’s) love of boats,” she said.

She also likes the fireworks, she said.

The festival draws up to 100,000 people to Marietta every year, according to its website.

C.R. Neale poses on his boat, the Joe S., Tuesday afternoon at the Marietta Levee. Neale and his wife came to Marietta for the Ohio Sternwheel Festival, which starts Friday. (Photo by Michelle Dillon)

People come to look at the boats even if they don’t go to the festival too. Steve Thomas and his wife Erica Thomas came down from Columbus for a visit to Marietta this past weekend, according to Steve Thomas, and they were down admiring the sternwheelers Tuesday afternoon.

“They’re just beautiful,” Erica Thomas said of the sternwheelers.

Steve Thomas said he and his wife rode the Valley Gem sternwheeler Monday and it was very peaceful. He said the sternwheelers “are a big part of the city (of Marietta)” and while they didn’t come for the festival they saw the boats and came to the levee to look at them.

The Ohio River Sternwheel Festival is not just a chance to meet friends or see boats.

“It’s kind of a good bye to the summer,” Ramsey Neale said.

More information about the Ohio River Sternwheel Festival can be found at https://sternwheel.org/.

Michelle Dillon can be reached at mdillon@newandsentinel.com