Captain Buck Leyhe

In looking at the "out of the past",I saw a note about Captain Buck Lehye. I was interning at Barnes Hospital in 1951-52. A new patient had been admitted that I was to exam. It was Capt. Buck Lehye of the Eagle Boat Company. When I entered the room and introduced myself, he BOOMED "was your father Billy Bahn(Bahn Brothers Hardware owner)". Yes", I said. He was a big man with a crushing handshake. He was ,however, chronically ill, and a shell of his former self. Over the next several days he told stores of the various steamboats that he had captained ( and sunk some of them due to fires, hitting logs, and sandbars in the ever changing Mississippi). He and his wife lived at the SW corner of Themis and Fountain. They had a little terrier, and when Capt. reached the vicinity of Cape Rock, he would blast the ship's whistle, and the dog would go wild. By the time his boat moored at the foot of Broadway, his little dog would be there barking for his master. A little before the 1950s, the company quit operating steam boats, but continued the operation of the Eagle boat store under the ownership of his two sons.

If anyone has more information about the Eagle boat company, Captain Buck, or Bahn Brothers Hardware Store, I would like to hear from them.

Charles Bahn MD

email--bahnmd@commspeed.net

527 Wind Spirit Circle

Prescott, Az. 86303