Loving County Courthouse

The Loving County Courthouse is a historic courthouse in Mentone, Texas. The courthouse, the first permanent one in the county, was built in 1935, replacing a temporary courthouse built in 1931. Loving County was organized in 1931 following an oil boom in the area; it reached a peak population of 600 shortly thereafter in 1933, though its population has since fallen to 82. Architect Evan J. Wood designed the building in the Moderne style; he was paid $2684.60 for his efforts. The two-story courthouse is the tallest building in Loving County and the only symbol of county government in the county.As Loving County is the least populous county in the United States, few court proceedings have taken place at the courthouse. Only 726 civil cases were filed at the courthouse between 1931 and 2004, most of them involving car accidents or business disputes among the county's oil and gas producers. The county convicted its first felon in 1936, when it sentenced oilman Norman C. Hill to four years in prison for stealing $4,000 worth of piping. Two jury trials in 2003 were the first in the county since its district court was established in 1955; the county's entire adult population was called for the 60-person jury panel, and establishing a jury was nearly impossible due to a Texas law prohibiting relatives from serving on the same jury, as only two potential jurors were unrelated to another potential juror. Nonetheless, the courthouse plays an important role in Loving County, as nearly a third of its population is employed by the county government.The courthouse was added to the National Register of Historic Places on May 10, 2006.