The Kanawha River's headwaters start in North Carolina as the New River. When the New meets the Gauley River at Gauley Bridge, it officially becomes the Kanawha, where it flows 97 miles northwest to the Ohio River at Point Pleasant.

Early settlers quickly learned the Kanawha was a highway to the west. By floating down the Kanawha to the Ohio and then the Mississippi, travelers could reach the Gulf of Mexico.

However, the river was dangerous. It had many rapids (shoals), causing numerous wrecks. Early boats, such as keel boats, had trouble, but the steamboat era eventually arrived in the 1800s. To make travel safer and more reliable, the river had to be tamed by building a system of locks and dams in the late 1800s and again in the 1930s, which provided a deeper channel for boats and helped control floods.

The river has long been the lifeblood of the Kanawha Valley. While pollution became a major problem as the chemical industry grew, strict laws and public efforts have helped cleaned the river to a great extent, making it safer for recreation today.