july the cumberland gap was discovered by captain samuel stalnaker who met dr thomas walker in dr thomas walker a virginia physician and explorer is credited with discovering the gap however his personal journal entries indicate otherwise i grew up in the area and i've never heard of captain samuel stalnaker does he have a wiki entry where can we find out about this person also i agree with everything mr crockett stated above all of which are things i've stated here before but no one seems to care enough to fix mari