Train crossing the Girard Avenue Bridge. The Willis W. Vail Glass Slide Collection is one of three significant collections of mine-related photography aggregated in the George and Melody Bragg New River Coal Fields Photographic Collections housed in Archives & Special Collections in Radford University's McConnell Library. Employed primarily as a surveyor in the years 1890-1896, Willis W. Vail (1868-1951) documented through photography the towns and scenery of the New River Gorge mining companies, especially in Raleigh, Fayette, and McDowell Counties.