Mike Fink

Mike Fink was a legendary American keelboatman and folk hero of the Old West, known as the 'King of the Keelboaters' for his marksmanship, brawling, and tall tales along the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers. Born around 1770 in Fort Pitt (now Pittsburgh), Pennsylvania, he became a frontier scout and river boatman before his death in 1823 at the mouth of the Yellowstone River. His life, often recorded in cheap printed materials after his death, symbolizes a vanishing frontier way of life and features prominently in American tall tale literature.