Loving County

Ralph Blumenthal with the story of a big small town: What it does have is the Boot Track Café (open mornings), a post office, a gas station and the yellow Deco two-story courthouse. There are two roads. There is no operating church, although the county's oldest building, a 1910 schoolhouse, is open for nondenominational worship. Seven children ride a school bus 33 miles to Wink in the next county.

"When I was little, I couldn't wait to leave," said Beverly Hanson, the county clerk. Then, she said, "I went to see the bright lights" — she became an apartment manager in Dallas — married and divorced and happily returned home. "I knew I was safe here," she said.