Mentone, Texas, is a tiny county seat that once lacked its own drinkable water.
In short: In the vast expanse of Loving County, Texas, sits Mentone, a community so small it has struggled to maintain basic infrastructure for decades. Once a bustling hub, this isolated desert town has faced everything from water shortages to eccentric attempts by outsiders to seize control of its local government.
Mentone serves as the county seat for Loving County, the least-populated county in the United States. While the town once boasted a thriving economy in the 1930s with five cafes, two hotels, and its own newspaper, the population has dwindled significantly over the decades. By 2020, the census-designated place recorded only 22 residents. The town's physical footprint is equally modest, covering just 0.2 square miles of arid desert landscape located about 22 miles north of Pecos.
The town's history is marked by extreme isolation and resource scarcity. For much of its existence, residents dealt with local well water so mineral-heavy it destroyed plumbing and vegetation. Until 1988, the community relied on water trucked in from Pecos, and it was not until 2010 that infrastructure improvements finally secured a reliable, potable supply. This scarcity of resources has often defined life in the region, where even the local school system was shuttered in the 1970s after enrollment dropped to just two students.
Despite its small size, Mentone has frequently attracted attention for unusual political maneuvers. In 2006, a group attempted to move supporters into the area to influence local elections, a plan that collapsed after they failed to prove legal land ownership. More recently, in late 2025, state authorities initiated legal action against a social media personality who encouraged followers to settle on undeveloped land near the town. These recurring attempts to influence the county's governance contrast sharply with the quiet, sparse reality of a town that once saw its first female sheriff, Edna Reed Clayton DeWees, serve for years with almost no recorded criminal activity.
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Sources
- Summary by Intellect · source: Mentone, Texas
- Also: Mentone
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