Renowned spinal surgeon and entrepreneur Dr. Arthur Steffee, whose 90th birthday was set to be celebrated with a Champagne toast at a piano concert Sunday, was confirmed to have died Friday, Aug. 16 by the Clarion County Coroner’s Office.

Born in Oil City, Steffee, an orthopedic surgeon of international acclaim and a community figure in Foxburg, notably restored and founded the Allegheny RiverStone Center for the Arts — one of the largest privately owned estates in the state — with his late wife, Patricia, who died six years ago.

As a surgeon, Steffee developed a revolutionary spine surgery, and was known in the medical community as the “father of modern spine surgery,” according to a Cleveland Clinic article written last year. In 1984, he founded AcroMed, a company specializing in spinal implants.

A news release from 2015 from Clarion University says Steffee was the author of more than 30 scientific articles on the spine. He designed and patented many of the orthopedic tools he used on his patients and began Steffee Orthopedics, which later become Horizon Orthopedics.

In Foxburg, Steffee also developed businesses including the Red Brick Gallery, Foxburg Wine Cellars and the Foxburg Inn. According to the Cleveland Clinic, Steffee and his late wife remodeled buildings and donated land to create a biking trail.

“I wasn’t proud of Foxburg,” Steffee told the Wall Street Journal in 2022. “Downtown was a mud hole, I kid you not. So I said ‘Let’s rebuild the place.’”

“While Allegheny RiverStone Center for the Arts lost its president and Foxburg lost the creator of its rebirth, the world lost a visionary,” said John Soroka, the center’s executive director.

According to an Associated Press report from 1961, Steffee moved from Oil City to Cleveland, Ohio, for an internship at the Cleveland Clinic Hospital in June of 1960. Six months after moving to Cleveland, his wife, Edith, and three sons, David, 5, Michael, 2, and John, 3 weeks, died in a fire while he was at work.

According to Brady Ion, Clarion County deputy coroner, Steffee died as a result of a fall from a ladder.