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by Elmer Kelton

“We four Kelton boys were rich. It was not because we had money, for we didn't. Money was always a short commodity in the 1930s and early 1940s. We were rich because we got to do for free what many people would have been glad to pay good money for, to live on a ranch (Crane County Texas) with horses and cattle and cowboys.” Read more Look inside

by Lasann Lyman

I rode with him as he made his deliveries and then we met Ruby Marshall, in Crane, Texas. Ruby worked at her brother's small restaurant in Crane, at one of my dad's bread delivery locations. Dad and I soon moved to Crane and then ... Read more Look inside

"Clayton moved the family from Fort Stockton to Crane the next year to be closer to his ice and water plant. Williams Jr. was called "Claytie" to distinguish his name from Clayton's nickname, "Clayt" At the beginning of 1932 ..." Read more Look inside

"Sandhills Boy is Elmer Kelton's memoir, a funny and poignant story of "a freckle-faced country boy, green as a gourd, a sheep ready to be sheared," growing up in the wild, dry, sandhills of Crane County Texas. The son of a working cowboy and ranch foreman, Elmer was expected to follow in father's footsteps but learned at an early age that he had no talents in the cowboy's trade ..." Read more Look inside

"In 1927 the woman's granddaughter, known as "Cot House Susie," returned to operate a flophouse six miles north in Crane and tell the story of her oilfield patrons. An elderly woman encountered by Smokey Swift may have been a factual ... Read more Look inside

by Patrick Dearen

"When Walter Boren signed on with a Crane County ranch a few miles east of Horsehead Crossing about 1916, there were only about six women, married or single, in the entire 782-square-mile county. 'Wasn't no place for a woman out there in that ..." Read more Look inside

"I grew up on a ranch nine miles from Crane. The children with whom I went to school were products of the oil fields. Our family stayed put, but many of the others did not. Like Mrs. Stowe, I frequently found myself saying goodbye to friends whose fathers were moving away to work in other fields. Many people lived in tents, some partially boarded up inside for better protection from the weather, some not. Crane was often described as a "ragtown" in its early years, a derisive name that clung to other boomtowns of the period ..." Read more Look inside

It is 1934, and as the storm clouds of war are casting their shadows over the European Continent, the British Isles, and North Africa, Wilmer Plate enters the freshman class at the Crane High School in Crane, Texas. Before and after school, he works at the family dairy. His early years at the dairy instill a fine work ethic and a sense of responsibility ... Read more

Gerald “Tex" Rogers Except for his two years in the Army, Tex lived his entire life in Crane. Texas. He was awarded the Bronze Star, and was honorably discharged in 1970. Returning to Crane, he married Sharron Westfall, ... Read more Look inside

by Dorothy Ervin and Gladys Hines McGee

Crane, Texas was my first territory. My dad and I were walking across the street one Saturday morning. He was in his usual Saturday dress: Stetson hat, conservative business suit, blue dress shirt. We were jay walking and a car came up ... Read more

Bitter Waters: The Struggles of the Pecos River

by Patrick Dearen

"Although only three to four feet deep, the ford presented such powerful currents that Smith's mules had to swim for a short distance. Upstream at Horsehead Crossing, thirteen miles southwest of modern-day Crane ... " Read more Look inside

"He played basketball in a gymnasium that was tiny and suffocating, and he would never forget the one time he was allowed to play in the gym at the white school, Crane High, and how dazzled he was by the beauty of its backboards ... "On a wing and a prayer after quitting college he had scrounged up enough money to buy a dump truck in Crane. Starting with that one truck he had built himself a company that ..." Read more Look inside

by Don Perry

"After being left behind there by his mother, ten-year-old Randy Davis now lives at the ranch where his dad, Jake, works as a ranch hand. Fitting in and winning the love of his father, a rough and stern man, is turning out to be a struggle. Ranch life is very different from his former life in Crane, Texas. Each day brings new challenges and trials ..." Read more Look inside

"A wall that was five feet high and built of concrete, rock, and mortar split Crane, Texas in half more than a half century ago—with blacks on one side and whites on the other. Evelyn Rossler Stroder, a longtime teacher, gave little thought to the wall as she ran teacher errands to the former Bethune School for blacks..." Read more Look inside . . . for more like this please see Black Texans in History

This book is the outcome of a lifelong love of history and the results of many years of research. Mr. Hooper tired of hearing "There weren't any people in Crane before the oil boom", and set out to prove the statement wrong. The material covers historical information of the Comanche War Trails, Chihuahua Trail out of Mexico. Gold hungry prospectors on their way to the gold fields in California. The Butterfield-Overland Mail, route which carried the mail from . . . Read more Look inside

Crane is the county seat and only town in Crane County, Texas. Hot, windy, and impossibly dry, save for the Pecos River and the oil bubbling below, people still have been migrating to or passing through it for hundreds of years. In 1583, Spanish explorers traversed the Pecos at a ford known as Horsehead Crossing. In 1858, the crossing became an important stop on the Butterfield Overland Mail route. Famous adventurers Charles Goodnight and Oliver Loving trekked through the crossing in 1866. Castle Gap, a mountain with castle-like boulders, offered shelter to prehistoric people. Likewise, forty-niners sought protection there while migrating to California. Legend states . . . Read more

by Elmer Kelton

"This book is dedicated to two school friends from long-ago days in Crane, Texas: Ted Hogan and Joe Pearce." The Civil War is over and Texas is reluctantly yielding to the Union soldiers spreading across the state, even into the dangerous Comanche country. David "Rusty" Shannon, proud member of a "ranging company" attempting to protect Texas settlers from Indian depredations, finds that the rangers are being disbanded. He makes his way home to his land on the Red River, hoping to take up the life of a farmer and the hand of the beloved girl he left behind, Geneva Monahan. But Geneva has married in Rusty's long absence and the country is filled with hostiles . . . Read more Look inside

When Kelton was three years old, his family moved to the McElroy Ranch located in Crane and Upton counties near the city of Crane. He graduated from Crane High School.

No one writes the old west like Seven-time Spur Award-winning author Elmer Kelton 

. . .  see more Books by Elmer Kelton

Resources:

Early Life in Texas County by County

Books about Texas People and Places

Amazing People from Texas County by County