There is a church, school, post office and several homes on Main Street in the peaceful little town nestled in a spellbindingly beautiful valley along the Delaware River.

The buildings, most of which date to the mid- to late 1800s, are white, with blue and red trim, brick chimneys and small but sturdy porches.

Welcome to Walpack Center, the town that time forgot.

No one lives in the buildings on Main Street, although a grand total of 20 people live in Walpack Township, of which Walpack Center is part.

You won’t find Walpack Center — the prettiest town no one lives in that you’ll ever visit — on any list of must-see Jersey attractions.

Buttermilk Falls, two miles from Walpack Center, is among the state’s most impressive waterfalls “and they don’t advertise it,” says Leonard Peck, former president of the Walpack Historical Society. “No one knows about it.”

Not many people outside Sussex County know of this scenic slice of Jersey.

“We have many summer visitors to the museum,” Jen Wycalek said of the Rosenkrans House, maintained as a museum by the Walpack Historical Society. “A lot of them say, ‘Well, back in Jersey … ’” Wycalek said with a laugh. “Where do you think you are?”

This is the kind of place Walpack is: Wycalek’s mailbox is a mile and a half from her house.

This is the kind of place Walpack is: There is a road called Old Mine Road Dirt, to distinguish itself from the paved portion of Old Mine Road.

This is the kind of place Walpack is: One man, Raymond “Red’’ Fuller, has been mayor since 1973 and on the three-person township committee since 1955.

Asked to describe her husband’s duties as mayor, Virginia Fuller replied, “Keep things together.”

The 24-square-mile township is peaceful and surpassingly quiet, almost to the point of spooky.

Abandon all hope, all ye who depend on your GPS — they often don’t work here, and Google Maps will show roads that don’t exist.

The Walpack Inn, where the sign out front reads “we feed the deer and people too,” may boast the most breathtaking back lawn of any restaurant in the state.

“The most beautiful place in the world,” Wycalek said of her surroundings. “It’s dazzling. I lay on my patio and see eagles. Ospreys. Coyote.”

Bears?

“Of course, bears,” she said, smiling.

When she tells the story of how she came to live here — 20 years ago, the then-Verona resident started volunteering for the historical society, eventually renting, then buying a home — tears come to her eyes.

She doesn’t have a computer or TV. The “hauntingly beautiful” woods are enough for her.

Any story of Walpack is not complete without mention of the two most detested words in the locals’ vocabulary: Tocks Island.

In the early 1960s, the Army Corps of Engineers convinced Congress that building a 400-foot-high dam at Tocks Island, six miles north of the Delaware Water Gap, would greatly benefit the regional water supply, curb flooding and create a recreational paradise. The Corps and the National Park Service would end up spending $100 million to buy homes, stores and churches on either side of the river. About 8,000 people were evicted from their homes. Many residents, such as Fuller, vowed they would never leave their land.

“I told them I had a shotgun by the door and whenever the Army Corps was here, they snapped a picture of the house without stopping,” Fuller told a reporter in 1992. “I still own my property and I intend to die here.”

Today when asked about Tocks Island, Fuller begins, “We’re really sick of this … ” and then politely answers a reporter’s questions before turning the phone over to his wife.

The Tocks Island dam was never built, but the bitterness over what happened seems as strong as ever.

The National Park Service owns all the buildings on Main Street except the school, which serves as town hall.

Walpack is nearly at the center of the 70,000-acre Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area.

“The town was supposed to be flooded for a dam,” said Ruth Ann Whitesell, president of the Walpack Historical Society. “Now its beauty can be appreciated by everyone.”

Whitesell lives in nearby Frankford, but she remembers walking through the woods here as a child.

“The first time we came here I thought we would never get out of here, that Indians would come out of the woods,” she said, smiling.

The historical society tries to keep Walpack on the map with meetings (held in the church, by permission of the National Park Service), a newsletter (Walpack News), hikes (in April and October), and Walpack Day.

The event was held last May for the first time in 13 years; about 700 people gathered on Main Street for the daylong celebration. A service was held in the church; several other buildings were open to visitors.

In summer, the museum and nearby Van Campen Inn, staffed by volunteers, are open.

“We want to crave the public’s attention,” Whitesell said. She smiled slightly. “Well, not really. But we do want people to know what’s going on here.”

One of the society’s more active members is Peck, who bought the old mailboxes from the Walpack Post Office at a public sale and donated them to the Walpack Historical Society.

Peck celebrated his 100th birthday last April 10.

“I’ve been around awhile,” he cracked.

rosenkrans

The Rosenkrans House, on Main Street, is a modest but evocative storehouse of local history. On the wall is a florid 1918 certificate of marriage with jubilant, trumpet-wielding angels. There is a packing crate lid with the words “E.J. Rosenkrans Walpack Centre NJ.” The crate had contained 164 pounds of candy for Rosenkrans’ general store.

In one room is a horsehair love seat, and a bright orange “fainting couch,” to which ladies would repair if they were in a swooning mood.

According to “Over the Mountain: A Place Called Walpack,” on sale at the museum, there was once a dude ranch called the Lazy K Bar Ranch in Walpack. It was described as the largest dude ranch on the East Coast. Guests were picked up in a 1922 Paige automobile at the Branchville train station. It was there, so the story goes, that a talent agent for MGM Studios gave country music legend and movie actor Tex Ritter his screen audition.

Today, what remains of Walpack are 20 residents and 11 homes.

And a Main Street unlike any other in the state.

Ghost town.

But the 20 people who call the rest of Walpack home wouldn’t think of moving. The solitude and splendid isolation are not for everyone, but perfect for them.

“There’s no cable here, and never will be,” Virginia Fuller said. “But we have excellent reception with the dish.”

Peter Genovese: (973) 392-1765 or pgenovese@starledger.com