Hometown Heritage

Since its beginning, millions of Valentines have been packaged inside larger envelopes and sent to Loveland, where more than 60 senior volunteers hand-stamp them with a special cachet – a four-line verse – and a postal cancellation, then re-mail them to their intended recipients. Now, the program re-mails more than 200,000 Valentines each year to all 50 states and more than 110 countries.

Ted and Mabel Thompson, who eventually became known as “Loveland’s Sweethearts,” continued promoting the program until their deaths. In 1962, the couple began the Miss Loveland Valentine program, selecting through an interview process a local high school senior to serve as the city’s ambassador during the Valentine season, and to promote the re-mailing program, as well as the community.

In 1964, the city began producing a specially designed Loveland Valentine card to offset some of the expenses of the costly re-mailing program. Each year, local artists and residents vie for the honor of
designing the new card and writing its verse. The Loveland Chamber of Commerce also holds a contest to gather designs and verses for the new cachet.

For more than 40 years now, the city’s residents have shared the love by hanging wooden hearts on lamp posts around town during the month of February. People pay a fee to post their love messages, painted in white, on the large red hearts for all to see as they drive or walk through the main streets of town.

Nearly 65 years after the Valentine re-mailing program’s inception, Lovelanders are still proud of our romantic heritage that sends a message of love and friendship around the world each year.

Vonda - Loveland, Colorado

Dalton Gang’s Robbery Fails at Coffeyville, Kansas, Bank

Every year, on the first weekend in October, an event that took place more than 100 years ago in Coffeyville, Kansas, is re-enacted.

On the sunny morning of October 5, 1892, the Dalton gang rode into Coffeyville around 8, intending to rob not just one, but two banks at the same time.

Brothers Bob, Grat and Emmett Dalton, as well as Bill Power and Dick Broadwell, made up the gang. The Dalton boys grew up in and around Coffeyville and were not always outlaws. At one time, they actually worked as lawmen in the Indian Territory of Oklahoma. It is believed that part of the reason they turned to robbing trains and banks was because they were often not paid for their duties as lawmen, and therefore had no money.