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Frank Loving

American gunman

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionSep 8, 2026
Entity authorityQ5488021
Source-derived summary

Frank Loving (1860 – April 21, 1882), sometimes called "Cockeyed" Frank Loving, was an Old West gambler and gunman. He was involved in two well-publicized shootouts of the day.

Early life

Loving was born in Jackson County, Missouri, and later moved with his family to Texas, where his father died in the early 1870s. He began making his living as a professional gambler by his late teens, and was often found in saloons. He eventually moved to Dodge City, Kansas. Loving began to frequent the Long Branch Saloon, where he became associated with other well-known gamblers, gunmen, and lawmen, such as Doc Holliday, Bat Masterson, Wyatt Earp, and Charlie Bassett. Loving developed a friendship with a gambler and reputed gunfighter, Levi Richardson. He also became good friends with Long Branch Saloon owner Chalkley Beeson.

Long Branch Saloon gunfight

Background

Levi Richardson had a tough disposition and was disliked by most of the townspeople, but did get along fairly well with Masterson. He had a reputation as a gunman, despite it being mostly hearsay.

Editorial summary

This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Frank Loving” as american gunman. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.

Editorial reviewA dependable orientation record for establishing vocabulary, names and a first evidence trail. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1860, 1882—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1860. The account is most persuasive where Frank, Loving and American can be independently traced.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The subject matters to the general reference register because the source frames it as american gunman. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.

Evidence profile

Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 8, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q5488021. None of the 1 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1860 and 1882.

Critical limits

The absence of detail may reflect summary conventions rather than a lack of surviving documentation. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

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  2. Expand the search: follow Frank Loving primary sources, Frank Loving archive and Frank research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from Frank Loving” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.