The brokenhearted history of an Arizona ghost town: Why Valentine was famous and what happened to it
In an isolated part of the Hualapai Reservation off of U.S. Route 66, a cluster of abandoned buildings and a little over 30 people make up the tiny, unincorporated town of Valentine, Arizona.
In 1898, the small community officially came into existence when the U.S. government allocated 660 acres of land in what is now recognized as Mohave County for Native Americans.
Shortly thereafter, in 1901, construction began on the Truxton Training School, a Native American boarding school, in alignment with the broader U.S. Indian policy of compelled assimilation.
The school, meant to detach children from their cultures and families, acted as a day school for the nearby Hualapai children, and as a longer-term boarding school for Apache, Havasupai, Hopi, Mojave, Navajo and Papago children.
After its opening in 1903, kids spent half of their time in Euro-American academic classes and half of their time learning trade skills. Girls would practice homemaking and boys would learn things like shoemaking, blacksmithing or farming.
These schools were meant to be as self-sufficient as possible, so students did a majority of the labor required to maintain the building, in addition to their classes. Diseases like measles, influenza, and tuberculosis were common.
After almost a decade of having an established boarding school and post office, the town was officially named Valentine in 1910. Its namesake pays homage to Robert G. Valentine, the U.S. Commissioner of Indian Affairs from 1909 through 1912. The National Old Trails highway was also built in 1910 and served as the precursor to Route 66.
As the town expanded, a school for white children was built in 1924 and was referred to as "The Red Schoolhouse." The Indian school was simultaneously under construction, being expanded by its own students using bricks they made.
The Truxton Training school was eventually closed in 1937, after another Hualapai day school opened up in the nearby town of Peach Springs, which led to the demolition of many of the buildings.
750 students passed through in the 36 years of the schools' operation.
Now the only building left standing is the two-story red brick schoolhouse, which was registered in the National Register of Historic Places in 2003. It is currently owned by the Hualapai Tribal Nation, who have plans to reopen it as a community center.
Valentine post office of heartbreak
Valentine grew slowly in the decades that followed, partly due to the business generated from its post office.
Once, the heart-shaped postmark stamped on letters passing through Valentine was a significant highlight of the town. Business reportedly doubled every year around Feb. 14 as people flooded in their letters to receive the special insignia.
This tradition, however, came to an end in 1990 when 44-year-old post worker Jacqueline Ann Grigg was murdered during a robbery.
In their grief, Grigg's family decided to tear down the post office and leave the town. Her husband bulldozed the building and reduced it to rubble forever.
For anyone looking to spice up their letters for loved ones this year, the sought-after heart-shaped post marks are actually still available at the Kingman Post Office, upon request.
Now only about 36 people live in Valentine, along with a handful of operating businesses and a whole lot of barren history.
This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Valentine, Arizona: The broken hearted ghost town
