Oliver Loving (December 4, 1812 – September 25, 1867) was an American rancher and cattle driver. Together with Charles Goodnight, he developed the Goodnight-Loving Trail. He was mortally wounded by Native Americans while on a cattle drive. Loving County, Texas, the second least-populous county in the United States and the least populated in the contiguous US, is named in his honor. Early life Oliver Loving was born on December 4, 1812 in Hopkins County, Kentucky.<ref name="chron">Richard Dunham, Today in Texas History: Trailblazer Oliver Loving dies, Houston Chronicle, September 25, 2010</ref>Julia Cauble Smith, "LOVING, OLIVER," Handbook of Texas Online (http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/flo38), accessed August 12, 2014. Uploaded on June 15, 2010. Published by the Texas State Historical Association. His father was Joseph Loving and his mother, Susannah Mary Bourland. Career In 1833, he became a farmer in Muhlenberg County, Kentucky. Ten years later, with his brother and his brother-in-law, he moved to the Republic of Texas with their families. In Texas, Loving received 640 acres (2.6 km²) of land in three patents spread through three counties Collin, Dallas, and Parker. He farmed and, to feed his growing family, hauled freight in his early years as a Texan. By 1855, he moved with his family to the future Palo Pinto County, Texas, where he ran a country store and ranched on Keechi Creek. By 1857, he owned a thousand acres (4 km²) of land. To market his large herd, Loving drove them out of Texas and in that same year he entrusted his nineteen-year-old son, Joseph, to drive his and his neighbors' cattle to Illinois up the Shawnee Trail. The drive made a profit of $36 head and encouraged Loving to repeat the trek successfully the next year with John Noble Durkee. On August 29, 1860, together with John Dawson, he started a herd of 1,500 toward Denver, Colorado to feed miners in the area. They crossed the Red River, traveled to the Arkansas River, and followed it to Pueblo, Colorado, where the cattle wintered. In the spring, Loving sold his cattle for gold and tried to leave for Texas. However, the American Civil War had broken out and the Union authorities prevented him from returning to the South until Kit Carson and others interceded for him. During the war, he was commissioned to provide beef to the Confederate States Army and drive cattle along the Mississippi River. When the war ended, the Confederate