As of 1998, about 7 percent of the coal mined in the United States came from the Kanawha River watershed. The watershed contains significant deposits of coal and natural gas. Eventually the settlers took over by right of conquest. They resisted European-American settlement during the colonial years. By right of conquest, the Iroquois, Lenape (Delaware), and Shawnee reserved the area as a hunting ground. Invading from their base in present-day New York, the Iroquois drove out or conquered Fort Ancient culture peoples, as well as such tribes as the Huron and Conoy. The area was a place of competition among historical American Indian nations. Some of the villages of the Fort Ancient culture survived into the times of European contact. A succession of prehistoric cultures developed, with the Adena culture beginning the construction of numerous skilled earthwork mounds and enclosures more than 2000 years ago.

Paleo-Indians, the earliest indigenous peoples, lived in the valley and the heights by 10,000 BC as evidenced by archaeological artifacts such as Clovis points. An environmental overview and summary of natural and human factors affecting water quality in the watershed was published in 2000. Albans, and numerous smaller communities. : 13 The river flows generally northwest, in a winding course on the unglaciated Allegheny Plateau, through Fayette, Kanawha, Putnam, and Mason counties, past the cities of Charleston and St. The waterfall is 24 ft high and has been a barrier to fish movement for more than 1 million years. It is formed at the town of Gauley Bridge in northwestern Fayette County, approximately 35 mi (56 km) SE of Charleston, by the confluence of the New and Gauley rivers 2 mi upstream from Kanawha Falls. The largest inland waterway in West Virginia, its watershed has been a significant industrial region of the state since early in the 19th century. The Kanawha River ( / k ə ˈ n ɔː ə/ kə- NAW-ə) is a tributary of the Ohio River, approximately 97 mi (156 km) long, in the U.S. Kanawha River → Ohio River → Mississippi River → Gulf of Mexico Charleston, 56.8 mi (91.4 km) from the mouth

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