Loveland, CO

Each February, Loveland turns postal work into a civic ritual. The Valentine remailing program began in 1947, inviting senders to route cards through the city for a local cachet and pictorial cancellation before delivery to their final addresses. Volunteers still apply the cachets by hand. The U.S. Postal Service called the 2026 edition, the program’s eightieth, the largest operation of its kind in the nation; cards arrived from across the United States and abroad. The tradition draws its meaning from a name that predates it. Loveland was founded beside the Colorado Central Railroad in 1877 and named for railroad president William A. H. Loveland. It incorporated in 1881, decades before mail began carrying the city’s name around the world each Valentine’s Day. Agriculture first shaped the economy around the rail town.

ATTRElmschrat / CC BY-SA 3.0

Sour cherries and sugar beets became leading crops, and a sugar factory operated from 1901 until 1985. The city later spread east along U.S. Highway 34 toward Interstate 25, producing two notably different centers. The older core remains around Fourth Street, Cleveland Avenue, and Lincoln Avenue, with municipal offices, independent businesses, cultural buildings, and housing on relatively compact blocks. Centerra began developing near Interstate 25 in 2001 and now combines homes with a medical center, shops, restaurants, and offices. Its 2026 project snapshot reports 8,600 jobs, 150-plus offices, and UCHealth Medical Center of the Rockies. The result is an east-west split: municipal and cultural trips lead downtown, while many medical and office visits lead toward the interstate.

ATTRElmschrat / CC BY-SA 3.0

Downtown activity gathers around buildings from several eras. The Rialto Theater opened in 1920 and returned to use after a community-led restoration; it now presents films, performances, and educational programs on East Fourth Street. The Loveland Museum sits a few blocks away on Lincoln Avenue. Between those institutions, the Foundry redeveloped three downtown blocks with apartments, restaurants, a hotel, a cinema, parking, and a central event plaza. Seasonal events and a splash pad bring activity into the development beyond movie and restaurant hours. This is also where the city’s older and newer functions overlap: residents can attend a museum program or Rialto performance, use the plaza, and reach shops or housing without leaving the downtown district. Public art extends Loveland’s cultural life far beyond a theater or museum doorway.

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In 1985, it became Colorado’s first municipality to direct one percent of eligible city capital-construction budgets to art. By 2025, the municipal collection contained 581 works valued at about $12.9 million; donations from artists, residents, and arts organizations supplied 70 percent of it. Benson Sculpture Garden offers the largest single concentration, with more than 150 works among its paths, lawns, and ponds. The setting also hosts Sculpture in the Park, the country’s largest outdoor juried sculpture show and sale. Its forty-second edition is scheduled for August 7 through 9, 2026. During that weekend, a garden used throughout the year becomes a working marketplace where sculptors display and sell new pieces beside the permanent collection.