Ramsey

Mentone, county seat of Loving County, is on State Highway 302 twenty-five miles southwest of Kermit and twenty-five miles north of Pecos in southwestern Loving County. It was laid out by James J. Wheat, Sr., and Bladen Ramsey, oil prospectors, in 1925, after they discovered oil nearby. They first called the town Ramsey but changed its name to Mentone when the postal service rejected the name. The site remained unsettled until 1931, when a post office was authorized.

Although Mentone was named the county seat when the county was reorganized in 1931, and although it is the only town in the county, two earlier settlements contributed to it. The first community, named Mentone by a French surveyor from Menton, France, was established in 1893 by a group of men who came to Loving County and formed the Loving Canal and Irrigation Company. They organized Loving County, made their Mentone the county seat, and received a post office. Three years later they abandoned the town. The post office closed, and the county was declared unorganized. The second town was founded in 1905, when E. L. Stratton, head of the Stratton Land Company of Chicago, led a group of settlers to Loving County. They called the town Juanita and later renamed it Porterville. After the present Mentone was founded two miles to the northeast, most of the residents of Porterville moved to the new site.