From 1837 to 1874 the area of Loving County was part of the Bexar land district. In 1874 the Texas legislature separated Tom Green County from the Bexar District. In 1887 Loving County was separated from Tom Green County, but it remained attached to Reeves County for judicial purposes. It was named for Oliver Loving, an early Texas cattleman who was mortally wounded by Indians on the Pecos in the area of the county as he rode in advance of his herd in 1866. Loving County is the only Texas county to be organized twice. The first organization appears to have been a scheme to defraud on the part of the organizers. Early in 1893 six men from Denver, Colorado, organized the Loving Canal and Irrigation Company of Mentone, Texas, with the stated purpose of migrating to isolated Loving County and constructing an irrigation canal from the Pecos to surrounding farmland. Although the 1890 United States census reported a population of only three in Loving County, on June 13, 1893, the organizers of the canal company filed a petition with the Reeves County Commissioners Court signed by 150 allegedly qualified voters who requested separate organization for Loving County. The court approved the petition and allowed the organization of the county. A county election was held on July 8, 1893, eighty-three votes were reported, and county organization was approved. Mentone, a town laid out by the company organizers twelve miles north of the present Mentone, was designated the county seat. County government was chaotic, and the state legislature deorganized Loving County on May 12, 1897, reattaching it to Reeves County. The Reeves County Commissioners Court taxed Loving County landowners to pay off the county debt. After Mentone was abandoned in 1897, no town existed in Loving County. The larger population produced the town of Ramsey and led to the second organization of Loving County in 1931. Ramsey was renamed Mentone and became the county seat. The county closed its school system in 1972 because only two students were enrolled and its cost was $146,000 a year; the students were transferred to Winkler County. -Handbook of Texas Online: Loving County