Loving County

The county's first government was a promotion that failed. Men behind the Loving Canal and Irrigation Company organized it in 1893 around their town of Mentone, but that August a Pecos flood wrecked the irrigation works and the settlers left. The officials kept control, and County Judge J. J. Combs sold four leagues of county school land in Dawson and Gaines counties less than two weeks after the patents arrived. Investigators in 1894 found three people in Mentone and were told the records had gone to Denver. The legislature deorganized the county on May 12, 1897.

What the plaque says

Loving County Formed from Tom Green County, created February 26, 1887. Organized July 8, 1893, named in honor of Oliver Loving, 1812-1867, farmer, rancher and an early trail driver. Mentone, the county seat.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Roy Orbison Museum — 26 mi
  A volunteer-run room in the oil town where Roy Orbison spent his high school years, opened on request, with a guitar he played and his tinted prescription sunglasses.

More markers nearby

• Mentone — steps away
• Oliver Loving, C.S.A. — steps away
• Route of Old Butterfield Stagecoach Road — 0.5 mi
• Goodnight-Loving Trail — 0.5 mi