The Confluence – a leather collection from Hinton, West Virginia

From the Practice Log – an ongoing series of leather stamping studies drawn from real places.

An August study.

Hinton, West Virginia, is where the Greenbrier gives itself to the New – a railroad town on brick streets that has watched two rivers become one since the C&O laid it out in the 1870s. We pressed what the town gave us into leather and called the collection The Confluence.

First, the meeting itself. We drew the New and the Greenbrier the way a surveyor might – two ribbons of current joining above the word HINTON, with WHERE RIVERS MEET beneath the joined water.

Two rivers meet above Hinton in The Confluence leather collection from Hinton, West Virginia.

The trio of luggage tags takes its colors from the junction: navy and deep green for the two rivers, warm caramel for the valley light. Looks great when stamped onto the leather.

Three leather luggage tags trace the New and Greenbrier rivers meeting in The Confluence collection from Hinton, West Virginia.

The same mark rides in the corner of the toiletry bags – New River navy over a brown as dark as railroad iron.

Two leather toiletry bags carry the joined-river mark from The Confluence collection of Hinton, West Virginia.

Next, the oldest division on this stretch of the C&O. Crews running east out of Hinton called themselves mountain men; crews running west were the rivermen. We cut a badge for each – a track climbing the peak for the eastbound, a track running level beside the water for the westbound.

The Mountain Men stamp plate carries an eastbound rail line in The Confluence collection from Hinton, West Virginia.

The Rivermen stamp plate pairs rail and water in The Confluence collection from Hinton, West Virginia.

On the keychains they make a pair, deep green for the mountain men and navy for the rivermen, so a household can settle which one it is. They look just awesome side by side.

Green and navy leather keychains pair Hinton's mountain men and rivermen in The Confluence collection.

Then the roundhouse. By 1892 the one at Hinton had seventeen stalls; we fanned all seventeen around a turntable and set the wheel in the middle of a golden tan catchall tray. It looks genuinely beautiful.

Seventeen roundhouse stalls fan around a turntable in The Confluence collection from Hinton, West Virginia.

A golden tan leather catchall tray holds Hinton's seventeen-stall roundhouse in The Confluence collection.

And finally, the journals. A batteau gets poled up the Greenbrier a few feet of current at a time, which is also how pages fill – so the cover corner carries a boatman poling his batteau over the words UP THE GREENBRIER. One journal in pale greige like the sandstone banks, the other in the deep green of the river itself.

A boatman poles a batteau up the Greenbrier in The Confluence collection from Hinton, West Virginia.

Two leather journals carry a batteau up the Greenbrier in The Confluence collection from Hinton, West Virginia.

We made this out of love. Leatherius Woodman is on a mission to create and share artifacts of beauty, craft and love – this study is one of them, and we hope the feeling is mutual. Every image is a render – how we prototype before cutting a die.

If Hinton is your town and you'd like any of these made real, or anything here changed – say hello through our contact page.