We come to you this week from the heart of the Mississippi Gulf Coast. We invite you to discover the Jackson County town of Ocean Springs.

Pierre LeMoyne d'Iberville stepped ashore here in 1699, establishing for France the first permanent settlement in the vast central area of North America.

Ocean Springs became known for its many natural springs that had medicinal qualities to cure all types of ailments. The town’s name was coined by Dr. George W. Austin, a New Orleans physician who established a sanitarium to take advantage of the health-giving springs.

In the early 1900s, the resort era came to an end with the accidental burning of two of the main hotels. The present day L&N Depot was built in 1907 and it soon became the hub of the towns activities.

Today, Ocean Springs is still a thriving Gulf Coast community with the charm of older homes, winding lanes and peaceful trees which shade its past. There’s something about this town that makes you want to slow down, take a deep breath and relax.

Ocean Springs has long celebrated its designation as an artistic community. The town is filled with extraordinary artist, potters, and performers. The Art House Co-op Gallery here is operated by the Ocean Springs Art Association. There are thirty working artists exhibiting their works and two artists in residence each day. So stop by next time you are in the area and soak up some of the some of this creative work that ranges from the whimsical to the serious.

And speaking of artists, In our first story we take you inside the enchanting and unique world of Ocean Spring’s most acclaimed artist, Walter Anderson.

Walter Inglis Anderson was born in 1903 in New Orleans to George Walter Anderson, a grain merchant, and Annette McConnell Anderson, an artist. His mother’s love of art, music, and literature strongly influenced Walter (called "Bob" by his friends and family) and his two brothers, Peter and Mac. Anderson was educated at a private boarding school, then attended the Parsons Institute of Design in New York and the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, where his drawings earned him a scholarship for study abroad.

He traveled throughout Europe and was particularly impressed with the cave art he saw at Les Eyzies in France. His wide-ranging interests included extensive reading of poetry, history, natural science and art history. He pursued man’s search for meaning in books of folklore, mythology, philosophy, and epics of voyage and discovery.

Anderson returned to Ocean Springs and married a Radcliffe graduate, Agnes (Sissy) Grinstead, started a family, and went to work creating molds and decorating earthenware at Shearwater Pottery, founded by his brother Peter. Anderson felt that an artist should create affordable work that brought pleasure to others, and in return, the artist should be able to pursue his artistic passions. In the 1930s, he worked on regional Works Progress Administration mural projects and began to view his role in art as a muralist.

It was in the late 1930s that Anderson first succumbed to mental illness. He was diagnosed with severe depression and spent three years in and out of hospitals. Following his hospitalizations, Anderson joined his wife and small children at her father’s antebellum home in Gautier, Mississippi. The pastoral tranquility of the "Oldfields" plantation provided an ideal setting for recuperation. During this period, he rendered thousands of disciplined and compelling works of art which reflected his training, intellect, and extraordinary grasp of the history of art.

With the understanding of his family, Anderson left his wife and children and embarked on a private and very solitary existence. He lived alone in a cottage on the Shearwater compound, and increased his visits to Horn Island, one of a group of barrier islands along the Mississippi Gulf Coast. He would row the 12 miles in a small skiff, carrying minimal necessities and his art supplies. Anderson spent long periods of time on this uninhabited island over the last 18 years of his life. There he lived primitively, working in the open and sleeping under his boat, sometimes for weeks at a time.

He endured extreme weather conditions, from blistering summers to hurricane winds and freezing winters. He painted and drew a multitude of species of island vegetation, animals, birds, and insects, penetrating the wild thickets on hands and knees and lying in lagoons in his search to record his beloved island paradise. Anderson’s obsession to "realize" his subjects through his art, to be one with the natural world instead of an intruder, created works that are intense and evocative.

Walter Anderson died at the age of 62 in a New Orleans hospital of lung cancer. Much of the work survived only by chance; it was discovered in drifts, like autumn leaves, throughout his cottage after his death. Those found treasures present the viewer today with a fascinating opportunity to share Anderson’s vision.

Ocean Springs offers some fifty small quaint shops and galleries in its downtown area. But if you tire of shopping there are some thirty restaurants in this coastal community that serve up regional cuisine and southern hospitality. These businesses draw diners morning, noon and night.

And speaking of food; in our next story, we take you inside one of Ocean Spring’s most popular morning time destinations.

The Tato-Nut Donut Shop located at 1114 Government Street in downtown Ocean Springs offers up a unique potato donut that entices patrons each morning to this popular eatery.

The Mississippi headquarters for the Gulf Islands National Seashore is located here in Ocean Springs. More than 80 percent of the Seashore is under water, but the barrier islands are the most outstanding features to those who visit. The Seashore stretches 160 miles from Cat Island in Mississippi to the eastern tip of Santa Rosa Island in Florida. Nature, history, and recreational opportunities abound in this national treasure.

Much of the area here at Gulf Islands National Seashore is similar to what it was like three hundred years ago. I time when d’Iberville first landed here and established Fort Maurepas and that’s the subject on this weeks edition of Walt’s Way.

The Mississippi Gulf Coast area was explored in1699 by Pierre LeMoyne d'Iberville who was sent by the King of France to claim this important coastal region. With a small troop, he sailed into Biloxi Bay and established Fort Maurepas and a small colony on the east shore that is now Ocean Springs. A replica of this fort has been created and may be visited. It is a particularly lively place for the - Fort Maurepas Reenactment - or the annual Landing of d'Iberville - celebrated in Ocean Springs.

The work of yet another talented Anderson descendant graces this wall at Washington and Bowen Avenue in downtown Ocean Springs. Christopher Inglis Stebby, Walter Anderson’s grandson was commissioned to paint a mural commemorating Ocean Spring’s 300th anniversary. Titled “Ocean Springs: Past, Present, and Future,” this eighty foot mural is a bright joyous celebration of life in the coastal town. Thus proving the belief that arts can improve community life.

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