About This Stamp
With this stamp, the U.S. Postal Service® celebrates one of West Virginia’s most photographed landmarks, the Glade Creek Grist Mill.
The stamp art captures the historic, aged beauty of the mill in its pristine setting along Glade Creek. The water flows by the mill and around boulders and rock formations along the creek bed. Surrounding the mill are trees in early autumn colors of greens, yellows, and oranges.
Located in Babcock State Park in Fayette County, West Virginia, the mill looks as though it has existed on that site for hundreds of years. In reality, it is a modern re-creation, completed in 1976, of a mill that had once stood nearby on Glade Creek. The look is authentic, however, as the new mill was constructed from parts taken from three historic West Virginia mills.
The Stoney Creek Grist Mill provided much of the basic structure. The 1890s mill was moved to Babcock piece by piece from its location near Campbelltown in Pocahontas County. Other parts came from the Onego Grist Mill, located near Seneca Rocks in Pendleton County. The water wheel was salvaged after a fire destroyed most of the Spring Run Grist Mill near Petersburg in Grant County.
Mills were once the center of local farming communities, offering the necessary service of grinding wheat, corn, and other grains, a backbreaking task when done by hand. The mill stands as a monument to the more than 500 West Virginia gristmills that were in operation at the turn of the 20th century.
Art director Derry Noyes designed the stamp with original art by Dan Cosgrove.
The Glade Creek Grist Mill stamp is being issued at the Priority Mail® price.
Stamp Art Director, Stamp Designer
Derry Noyes
For more than 40 years Derry Noyes has designed and provided art direction for close to 800 United States postage stamps and stamp products. She holds a bachelor of arts degree from Hampshire College and a master of fine arts degree from Yale University.
Noyes worked as a graphics designer at Beveridge and Associates, a Washington, D.C., firm, until 1979 when she established her own design firm, Derry Noyes Graphics. Her clients have included museums, corporations, foundations, and architectural and educational institutions. Her work has been honored by American Illustration, the Art Directors Club of Metropolitan Washington, Communication Arts, Critique magazine, Graphis, Creativity International, and the Society of Illustrators.
Before becoming an art director for the U.S. Postal Service, she served as a member of the Citizens' Stamp Advisory Committee from 1981 to 1983.
Noyes is a resident of Washington, D.C.
Stamp Artist
Dan Cosgrove
A native of Cincinnati, Ohio, Dan Cosgrove graduated from the University of Cincinnati in 1978 with a major in graphic design. After briefly working for the National Park Service in Denver and as a designer at Cato Johnson in Cincinnati, Cosgrove moved to Chicago in 1980 and began a freelance career in digital and traditional illustration.
Cosgrove's designs have appeared in numerous ads, posters, covers, and on packaging. Recent clients include Cunard Line, Dunlop Tire, Fiat, J P Morgan Chase, Miller Brewing Company, Netflix, The New York Times, Shell Oil company, SohoPress, and The Wall Street Journal. In recognition of his work Cosgrove has received awards from Communications Arts and the Society of Illustrators (Gold Medal).
The 2008 Express Mail® and Priority Mail® stamps featuring Mount Rushmore and Hoover Dam were Cosgrove's first projects for the U.S. Postal Service. Since then, Cosgrove has illustrated 27 additional Express Mail and Priority Mail Express stamps. Recent designs include Florida Everglades (Priority Mail) (2023), Great Smoky Mountains (Priority Mail Express) (2023), Monument Valley (Priority Mail) (2022), and Palace of Fine Arts (Priority Mail Express) (2022). He also created the stamp art for USS Missouri (2019).
Cosgrove and his wife live in Clarendon Hills, Illinois.