Crane County went from near-empty to oil boomtown in one decade

Crane County was formed in 1887 from Tom Green County and named for William Cary Crane, a Baylor University president. For decades it had almost no population — only 51 people lived here in 1900. The land was dry and far from everything.

That changed fast when oil was struck in 1926. An estimated 6,000 people poured into the county by 1927. The town of Crane was established as the county seat, and the county officially organized in 1927. By the time of the 1930 census the population had grown to 2,221. The Handbook of Texas says the county had produced roughly 1.55 billion barrels of oil from 1926 through 1991. Today Crane is still the only incorporated community in the county.