R.I. Walker is an author who has written the book series, "Legacy: A Pictorial History of Coal Mining in Southern West Virginia", and "Legacy: A Different Breed". He is also a certified scuba diver and underwater photographer dedicated to photographing the beauty of his home state of West Virginia. Primarily featuring the states many, incredible waterfalls. He has also been a career underground coal miner with nearly 40 years underground experience, with numerous certifications from the industry.

   Having grown up in the coal fields of southern West Virginia the lifelong native of the state took work deep inside the mountains, seeking to provide a honest living with a decent wage for him and his family. As the years passed, he had noticed so much of the rich, diverse coal history either being lost back to nature or reclaimed and disappearing altogether. Lost! The reason behind the Legacy photo book series was simple, to document and preserve the coal history of southern West Virginia. Researching and photographing abandoned mine sites and documenting the history behind each one for posterity and future generations. Not only the mine sites themselves but the people who lived and worked in the areas and the hardships they endured to simple earn a living for their families.

   “A Different Breed”, the title of the second book he wrote, is how he truly see’s the coal miners not only of West Virginia as, but miners in general all over the globe. Doing what others, seemingly would not have the courage to do. A very rare breed of people indeed, bravely facing the hardships of the early days of the rugged terrain of West Virginian. And, certainly the early people who flocked to the New River area were of no exception. Long before acceptable roads were created, treading long, rough, mountainous trails just in hopes of finding work and the dreams of a prosperous future.

   “Heritage Lost: The New River Gorge”, focuses on one specific area of the West Virginia coal fields, the incredibly rough region of the New River Gorge area in Raleigh and Fayette Counties. Hoping to take a look at the numerous small coal mining towns that sprang up along the river’s edge and the amazing and tough people who made this area their home. From Quinnimont in the southern part of the gorge to Ansted in the north. “Heritage Lost: The New River Gorge”, hopes to document these communities that once depended upon coal as a way, a means to provide a livelihood for their families. Fortunes were made, lives were lost and hopes and dreams were either dashed or realized. A very rare breed of people indeed were the people who settled in the coal fields of the New River Gorge area. Over 60, small towns once dotted the gorge area and today, very few remain, many are just ruins of stone foundations of communities now long sense forgotten by time.