Kentuckys First Commercial Coal Mine

A fact you might find interesting...

Just two years after the first coal was discovered in the United States in 1750 explorer Thomas Walker discovered coal in what would become Kentucky and used it to heat his camp fire. Although his discovery came in the Eastern Coalfield it would be another 150 years before commercial coal production occurred there. In 1820 the first commercial coal mine in Kentucky opened in the Western Coalfield in Muhlenberg County. In its first year the mine produced 328 tons of coal. By 1843 the state produced 100,000 tons of coal produced, and by 1879 the state produced one million tons of coal, all coming from the Western Coalfield. 

Credits:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coal_mining_in_Kentucky