Site of Loving Ranch House

Loving was among the cattlemen who issued the fall 1876 call for the meeting that founded the stock raisers' association, and he was elected its secretary every year until 1902. In those years the association incorporated in 1882, adopted its per-head assessment that same year and began its inspection system in 1883, posting inspectors along the trails, at shipping points and at terminal markets. Members listed 730,000 cattle in 1883 and 1,385,303 by 1895. The secretary's office stayed at Loving's ranch until 1884, when it moved to Jacksboro.

What the plaque says

Built 1872 by J. C. Loving, the son of pioneer trail driver Oliver Loving. J. C. Loving was an organizer and first secretary of Texas and Southwestern Cattle Raisers Association. Organization's first office was at the ranch, which was later operated by Loving's son, Oliver II. (1968)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Old Post Office Museum and Art Center — 15 mi
  Graham's 1936 Art Moderne post office, with a New Deal mural by Alexandre Hogue inside, now the free museum of Young County in the town where the Texas cattle raisers first organized.
• Fort Richardson State Park and Historic Site — 16 mi
  The northernmost post of the Texas frontier line, outside Jacksboro, where a stone hospital and six other buildings stand from 1867 and a later Guard unit became the Lost Battalion.
• Fort Belknap — 20 mi
  The 1851 northern anchor of the first Texas frontier forts, on the Brazos below Newcastle, a Butterfield stop and the post beside the Brazos Reservation until its people were driven out in 1859.
• Royal Theater — 26 mi
  Archer City's movie house, burned in 1965, given a false front for The Last Picture Show and brought back by the town in the 1990s as a working stage on Main Street.

More markers nearby

• Community of Jermyn — 1.7 mi
• Lost Valley — 5.8 mi
• Hawkins Chapel — 6.0 mi
• Bryson — 7.4 mi