Is there something about the area that's always puzzled you? Our feature OKI Wanna Know is your opportunity to ask about it. This week, we dive into the history of one of the Ohio River's most famous rivermen. WVXU's Bill Rinehart explains.
When you say Mike Fink today, some people might think about the floating restaurant that used to grace the banks of the Ohio River. It's gone now, but it was named after the actual Mike Fink.
Charles Crimmel of Newtown wants to know what role Mike Fink played in the history of Cincinnati and the Ohio River Valley.
The family that owns BB Riverboats in Newport also owned the restaurant. Alan Bernstein says they bought it in 1975.
"If you own a boat, or a restaurant named Mike Fink, then you need to understand what was all involved in Mike Fink," Bernstein says.
There are two Mike Finks to consider. One, he says is the Disney version, featured in the 1956 film Davy Crockett and the River Pirates.
"What did you say? He wants to know who the captain is! How long you bushwackers been holed up in the back woods? Everybody knows who the captain of the Gullywhumper is. It's me! Mike Fink! King of the River!"
That Mike Fink was played by Jeff York.
"I am the original ringtail roarer from the thunder 'n lightnin' country! I'm a real snorter and a head buster! I can out-run, out-jump, out-sing, out-swim, out-dance, out-shoot, out-eat, out-drink...
Out-talk?
Yeah, out-talk, out-cuss and out-fight anybody in the whole Mississippi and Ohio rivers put together!"
Alan Bernstein says there's some truth to that characterization.
"He ran in the area of Tennessee, West Virginia, Kentucky. He challenged people to drinking beer, all kinds of antics, and won repeatedly."
Bernstein says Fink wasn't a bad guy, just larger than life. And he was someone who loved the Ohio River Valley, and loved to represent it.
"His early desire for this region was for it to be well known, which we have absolutely done that. And he wanted to prove that there were people that cared very much about the region."
Professionally, Fink was a keelboat operator, and Bernstein says it's likely he helped move settlers and their cargo here.
"The river was the interstate highway of those days. So in order to go from, let's just say Pittsburgh to Louisville, Kentucky, most of the settlers followed the river."
Fink was inducted into the National Rivers Hall of Fame in Dubuque, Iowa, in 2010. Historians there say Fink went west as civilization came to the Ohio River Valley. He became a fur trapper and a trader in eastern Montana. One common story has it he tried to shoot a glass or a bottle off the head of another man, but missed and killed the fellow. The man's friends then shot and killed Fink in 1823 near what is now North Dakota.
But Fink had an impact while he was alive. As Bernstein points out, he helped get the word out about a place with plenty of fresh water, game and salt deposits.
"The fact that the Licking River comes into the Ohio River where it does is one of the things that had the settlers when they arrived here think that this might be a good area to settle."
Of course, in the 20th century, Mike Fink was remembered with the floating restaurant. Bernstein says it was first opened in the early 1960s by Captain John Beatty, another riverman who specialized in salvage. Bernstein says his family bought it and ran the restaurant until about 2008. It was closed for repairs and never reopened.
"The hull of it is up in Marietta, Ohio. A gentleman, a riverman, approached me, and he said 'Look, if you're not going to use it, I can use it,' " Bernstein says. "We weren't going to open it as a restaurant. It was going to require a four or five million dollar investment and we just, at that particular time, we just didn't want to do that."
Bernstein says today the Mike Fink is living an unglamorous life as a maintenance shop.
He says BB Riverboats is looking for a scale model of the Mike Fink boat to display at their headquarters in Newport.
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