Yesterday marks the 155th anniversary of the death of Oliver Loving, cowman and business partner of famed rancher Charles Goodnight. Loving died on September 25, 1867. Earlier that year, in the spring of 1867, Loving and Goodnight returned to Texas, ready to start a new cattle drive. This drive was slowed by heavy rains and Native American threats. Loving went ahead of the herd for contract bidding, taking only Bill Wilson, a trusted scout, with him. Although he told Goodnight that he should travel at night through Native American Indian country, Loving himself pushed ahead during the day. During a Comanche attack, he was seriously wounded at Loving's Bend on the Pecos River near what is now Loving, New Mexico. The weakened Loving sent Wilson back to the herd, eluded the Indians, and, with the aid of Mexican traders, reached Fort Sumner, only to die there of gangrene. Before he died on September 25, 1867, Goodnight assured Loving that his wish to be buried in Texas would be carried out. After a temporary burial at Fort Sumner, while Goodnight drove the herd on to Colorado, Goodnight had Loving's body exhumed and returned to Texas. Stories differ as to who accompanied the body back to Weatherford, but he was reburied there in Greenwood Cemetery on March 4, 1868. As a member of Phoenix Lodge No. 275 at Weatherford, Loving was buried with Masonic honors. I have posted photos of his tombstone on this page in the past.
