5. Mike Fink, the King of the River
Oversized men figure prominently in American folklore, with some mythic and others based, albeit loosely, on real persons. John Henry and Paul Bunyan are two examples of likely combinations of stories about several individuals, while others such as Mike Fink are exaggerations of the adventures of one. Mike Fink enjoyed a brief burst of national fame in the 1950s when Disney featured him as a character in Davy Crockett and the River Pirates, portrayed by Jeff York. Following the Crockett craze of that decade, Fink again faded into relative obscurity except along the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers, where his name and legends about his life remain in several of the small towns and river ports which line the banks. Tales about Fink are often misattributed to him, being part of the adventures of other rivermen.
Mile Fink was a large man for his day, described as over 6′ 3″ and weighing close to 200 pounds at a time when average height was just under 5′ 8″ and most men weighed about 150 pounds. He was a regimented businessman, and most often he moved cargoes up the Great Miami River from near Cincinnati to its headwaters, where it was then portaged to the Great Lakes. Usually depicted as a braggart and a bully, with a taste for liquor and fisticuffs, stories about Fink can be found from Pittsburgh to New Orleans, though he is probably best known along the Ohio between Manchester and Louisville. There are several different versions of what happened to him and where he eventually died, all claiming to be factual, though without supporting evidence.