page_title: Loving County, Texas
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Loving County, Texas / History
caption_attribution_description: Watertower for 67 people
context_page_description: Loving County is a county in the U.S. state of Texas. With a population of 134 as of a 2017 estimate by the United States Census Bureau, Loving County is the second-least populous county in the United States after Kalawao County, Hawaii. Loving County has no incorporated communities; its county seat and only community is Mentone. The county was originally created in 1887, and after being disorganized in 1897, was reorganized in 1931.
context_section_description: Prehistorically, the area had many springs with potable water that supported wildlife and nomadic hunters. Antonio de Espejo visited the area in 1583 and crossed the Pecos River. Having surveyed the area in 1854 for a railroad company, John Pope returned in 1855 to start a camp in northwestern Loving County and establish artesian wells in the area, but the venture was unsuccessful and was abandoned in 1861.
  From 1837 to 1874, the area of modern Loving County was part of the Bexar land district. In 1874, it was separated from Bexar County, becoming a part of Tom Green County. It was separated from Tom Green County in 1887, but for judicial purposes, was left attached to Reeves County.  It is the newest organized county in Texas.
  Loving County is named for Oliver Loving, a cattle rancher and pioneer of the cattle drive, who along with Charles Goodnight, developed the Goodnight-Loving Trail. He was mortally wounded by members of the Comanche nation while on a cattle drive in 1867 in the vicinity of the county.
  Loving is the only county in Texas to be incorporated twice, first in 1893 and again in 1931. Its initial organization was effected by a canal company founded in Denver, Colorado, and appears to have been based upon fraud and willful misrepresentations made by the founders to state officials. After a local landowner hired a New York City firm to investigate alleged improprieties in county government, the company's organizers fled, taking with them all the county records.  The state legislature subsequently disincorporated Loving in 1897, attaching it to Reeves County.
  Oil was discovered in 1921, leading to a population increase in Loving County. By 1930, it had 195 residents, mostly living in what would become the town of Mentone, which became the county seat when Loving was reconstituted in 1931. By 1933, the population had peaked at 600, only to begin a steady decline that has continued until recently.
  Loving County was the home of the first elected female sheriff in Texas, Edna Reed Clayton Dewees. Dewees was appointed to the job in January 1945, then won an election to continue in the office through 1947. She never carried a firearm and reported only two arrests during her entire term. Later, she returned as a county district clerk, a job she held from 1965 to 1986. After retirement, she lived on a ranch near Mentone until 22 January 2009, when she died in Del Rio.
caption: Water tower in the county
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