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Send Love Letters With Valentine, Texas Postmark

'Loving' Cities Around Nation Give Valentines Cards Special Marking

POSTED: Thursday, February 9, 2006
UPDATED: 1:02 pm CST February 9, 2006

HOUSTON -- Every year around Valentine's Day, cards and letters roll into a tiny adobe-style West Texas post office for weeks as romantics from around the world send messages to get stamped with the distinctive postmark of Valentine, Texas.

Sweethearts from all over the world send a stamped card or letter inside another envelope addressed to the post office, along with a request to give the holiday message the special Valentine postmark.

The postal workers then stamp the envelope with the city's distinctive postmark, created by a student at the town's K-12 public school. The postmark changes annually.

To get your Valentine sent with the town's distinctive postmark, place a stamped envelope with the recipient's address on it inside another envelope and mail it to:

Postmaster Valentine, Texas 79854

Valentine is one of only two towns in Jeff Davis County, one of the state's least populous counties. Fort Davis, 40 miles to the east, is the other town.

According to the Texas State Historical Association, Valentine got its name from a Southern Pacific Railroad construction crew, which reached the site Feb. 14, 1882. Trains first arrived in 1883, and the first post office was established in 1886.

As it became a shipping point for cattlemen, population peaked at more than 600 in the early 1930s. Since then, it's dwindled. And other than its name and post office, Valentine's claim to fame is that it was near here in 1931 that a 6.0 earthquake hit, the largest ever in Texas.

The holiday postmark tradition grew from the 1980s, when former postmaster, Doris Kelley, did some for friends and the favor was spread by word of mouth.

Valentine's Day is big in other Texas post offices, as well as in Nebraska and Colorado.

In Loving, postmaster Sherry Kincaid says her "little bitty community" about 80 miles northwest of Fort Worth gets several thousand pieces of extra mail in weeks leading up to Feb. 14.

Hart, about 60 miles northwest of Lubbock, gets a few items from people looking for a special postmark but isn't in the same league with Valentine or Loving. "I wish we were," postmaster Tommie McCormick said.

Valentine shares its name with Valentine, Neb., a town of about 3,000 that bills itself as America's "Heart City" and also cashes in on the holiday, as does Loveland, Colo., the "Sweetheart City."

Copyright 2006 by Click2Houston.com. The Associated Press contributed to this report. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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