History Alive is a program of first-person portrayals of historical figures by presenters who have conducted scholarly research on their characters. Gabriel Arthur is believed to have been the first European American to see the Kanawha Valley while traveling with a band of Indians in 1674. During this time, he followed either the Big Coal River or Paint Creek to the Kanawha River, where he and his party were welcomed at a large Moneton Indian town in the lower Kanawha Valley.