That Loving Feeling

by Bennett Owen

Not the Middle of Nowhere – But You Can See it from Here ...

Loving County, Texas is most famous for what it doesn’t have – namely people. And it looks set to retain the title of least populated county in the US for another 10 years. 

Photo: Sonya N. Hebert/Staff Photograph Dallas News

Although the Dallas Morning News reports things are looking up. The latest census shows the warm body count gaining a whopping 18% over the past 10 years…15 newcomers pushing the population to 82.   That’s in the same decade Texas added 4.5 million people.  Read the full article here.

Photo: Sonya N. Hebert/Staff Photograph Dallas News

The county seat, Mentone, is unincorporated.  This description of the town, courtesy of Texascapes.com:

“Besides no newspaper, no grocery, no doctor and no school children (they do have a school but it’s been closed since the 70s)…..

Photo courtesy of vphill

…they also have to haul in drinking water. They even rely on nearby Kermit or Pecos for the use of their cemeteries.”  

Photo courtesy of Matthew Rutledge

Service is occasional at the Boot Track Café. A reader reports he spotted a coyote three blocks from the courthouse in mid-afternoon. Speculation was that the coyote was leaving town after a messy divorce.

Texascapes also has a list of top slogans for Mentone. Among them:

• East of the Pecos, West of France
• The Rodney Dangerfield of West Texas
• If everybody’s got to be somewhere, why isn’t anybody here?
• You can buy a stamp at the Post Office but you’ve got to get the spit to lick it in Kermit.

What Loving County does have is Sheriff Billy Burt Hopper who patrols in a pickup with two shotguns and an AK-47.

Photo: Sonya N. Hebert/Staff Photograph Dallas News

The story of his election is nothing short of amazing. The New York Times has it here.

And I thought Petroleum County, Montana was empty. If you want to see some wide-open spaces, I’d say Mentone, Texas is at the absolute center of it.