When Clarke C. “Doc” Hawley was a young man, the steamer Avalon pulled into his hometown of Charleston, West Virginia, without a calliope player. Doc Hawley asked if he could give it a go, and landed the job. During the course of his long river career, he not only served as master of the three of the five remaining Mississippi River steamboats, but he has done much to promote river history.

There aren’t many young scholars who would turn down a prestigious Rhodes Scholarship to study in England, but that is exactly what Clarke “Doc” Hawley did when he graduated from college in 1957. His reason was simple, “I wanted to stay with the boats,” he said, referring to the paddlewheelers that he piloted up and down the Mississippi River for the past 40 years or so. For him, the chance to study at a vaunted university across the ocean was no match for his impassioned love affair with the river here at home.

Doc’s family home was in Virginia, but he visited New Orleans so often during his decades on riverboats — including the Avalon (now the Belle Of Louisiana, the President, the Delta Queen, the Mississippi Queen, the Creole Queen, and the Natchez — that he began looking for his own berth in the city. As New Orleans celebrates its 300th anniversary this year, Doc Hawley, aka as the unofficial mayor of the French Quarter, is a welcoming presence for visitors attending events, exhibitions, and activities to highlight its first three centuries.