John Peter Salling

John Peter Salling (sometimes Saling, Sailing, Saline or Salley) was born in Germany in the early 18th century and traveled to America as a young man, settling in Augusta County, Virginia. He was an explorer who led expeditions from Canada to Florida, and is credited with being the first white man to set foot in western Kentucky. As Kentucky's state historian, James Klotter, explains in A New History of Kentucky, "No one can name with certainty the first man of European descent who explored Kentucky. He may have been one of the anonymous, far-ranging French coureurs du bois, or one of the Jesuit priests who ventured into so many remote areas of the West" (Klotter, 15).[1] Therefore, it is more accurate to state that Salling was among the first Europeans to enter and explore Kentucky.

In 1742, Salling discovered coal in western Virginia along the banks of the Coal River, near what is today Racine in Boone County, West Virginia.[2] His companions were John Howard, Josiah Howard, John Poteet and Charles St. Clair.[3] They were offered 10,000-acre land grants to explore the wilderness beyond Virginia.[4][5]He is credited widely for having discovered the first reserves of coal ever found. That coal was later used in the first ever coal-generated power plant, developed by Thomas Edison, in 1882.