By MARK TONER
Staff Writer

LOVE—Love is hard to find these days.

But it’s still there.

Unlike dozens of other towns with romantic-sounding names scattered across the country, valentines no longer pass through Love, a mountaintop hamlet that straddles the Augusta-Nelson County border.

Love’s post office—a small wooden building that also served as a store and a home—is now in shambles. It was closed in 1946, a year which saw the town’s beloved postmaster, Gordon Demastus, hand in his postage stamps. Now mail is carted in from Lyndhurst.

But Love is still in the air. Perched near the top of the Blue Ridge, it overlooks eastern Augusta County and is seconds away from the Blue Ridge Parkway.

Gentle mountaintop mists often obscure the views of the Valley, meaning, of course, that Love is also blind.

A rolling stream known to locals at the Back Creek rolls down the mountainside near the town, suggesting that given time, Love could even move mountains—or at least wear them down a bit.

Love can be stubborn, too. Despite the fact that the town falls under the auspices of the Lyndhurst post office, Lynn Barrett, who publishes “Backroads” magazine from her lovenest, still has her mail addressed to Love, Va.

“As long as they put the same Zip code [as Lyndhurst] on the envelope, it still gets here,” she says.

But there was a time before Love came to the mountains. Originally called Meadow Mountain, the village would be changed forever by the arrival of the U.S. Mail in 1984—and by Hugh Coffey, the town’s first postmaster, Ms. Barrett says.

“The post office was pushing him to get a smaller name [so it could] fit on the stamp,” she explains.

Within two years, Coffey had changed the village’s name to Love—in memory of his beloved daughter, Lovey Coffey, who died of typhoid fever when she was 17. Love became unforgettable.

The post office—a place where people would blow a whistle to summon the postmaster from the fields he also worked—was always the center of activity in town, according to Ms. Barrett.

“He had cubbyholes and everything, but there were no numbers,” she says. “He knew everyone’s name.”

Some lovelorn people left town after the post office closed in 1946, but Love wouldn’t die. The hamlet now claims a small church, and by Ms. Barrett’s estimate, 66 people and a variety of dogs and goats, most of whom don’t plan on leaving anytime soon.

“Nobody really comes up here,” Ms. Barrett says. “People were just sort of here… They never left the area.”

Love springs eternal.