Crane, Texas

When day breaks and the morning sun rises above Castle Mountain, a distinct landmark appears on the outer perimeter of the Chihuahuan Desert. The landmark of Castle Gap is a natural gap in the Castle Mountain Range, which protrudes from the King Mountain range in Upton County. In prehistoric times, nomadic Native American Indians traversed the area, as evidenced by flint arrow points found there. As men began to move west and explore the unknown region of west Texas, they saw in the distance a mountain that looked like a castle with a hole in the wall. As a result the hole became known as the gap in Castle Mountains, but is now called Castle Gap. This gap provided easy and time-saving access to the other side of the mountain range. Within the gap on the north wall was a seeping source of fresh water, a much needed life-sustaining source. The first recorded European visitors were Spanish explorers in 1535. Many more pioneers followed, as the gold prospectors travelling to California stopped for rest. From 1858 to 1861, the Butterfield Overland Mail Coaches rumbled through the pass on their 24-day journey from St. Louis to San Francisco, stopping at the small adobe walled castle gap station only long enough for fresh teams, then moving on to ford the Pecos River at Horse Head Crossing, 12 miles to the southwest. By 1866 the Goodnight-Loving cattle trail was well established, through the gap, funneling tens of thousands of longhorn cattle to the northern markets. During the same time, legend holds, a treasure-laden aide of Emperor Maximillian of Mexico, fleeing the country, buried his gold and jewels as he stopped to rest in the gap. All the pioneer trails are now dormant. (1966, 2013)

Well known to frontiersmen and used by emigrants for several years preceding, this crossing was an important point on the southern overland mail (Butterfield route) which Linked St. Louis and San Francisco with a semi-weekly mail and stage service 1858-1861.

A natural salt deposit, known and used for the past 300 years. On land grant from Mexico to Juan Cordova; name, misread on maps, is now unique to lake. Apaches were encountered here by explorers in 1683. From days of early settlers, Mexicans and Anglo-Texans relied on this salt deposit. During the civil war, 1861-1865, a 7-family San Saba wagon train traded watermelons and other goods to Indians here for sorely needed salt. In 1912-1914 a 36-burro train hauled salt from here. Recently as 1930, commercial shipments went out to Midland and Odessa.

Crane County, at the western edge of the Edwards Plateau in Southwest Texas, is bounded on the north by Ector County, on the east by Upton County, on the south by Pecos County, and on the west by Ward County. It was named for William Cary Crane , a president of Baylor University. Crane County comprises 795 square miles of rolling prairie, bounded on the south and west by the Pecos River, which, with Juan Cordona Lake , drains the land. The center of the county lies at 31°25' north latitude and 102°30' west longitude, about forty miles south of Odessa. Rainfall averages 12.97 inches annually. The elevation varies from 2,400 to 3,000 feet above sea level. The average minimum temperature in January is 29° F; the average maximum in July is 96°. The growing season lasts 225 days, but there is very little farming. Cattle raising brings in about $1.5 million annually. Manufacturing income averages $1.4 million annually, derived largely from steel and concrete products. The county is among state leaders in oil and gas production. In 1982 oil production of almost 27,000,000 barrels earned $810,652,695. The area that is now Crane County was within the territory of the Lipan Apaches, who were among the originators of the plains culture common to Apaches, Comanches, Kiowas, and other Indians. This part of the Pecos country may have been crossed by Spanish explorer Felipe de Rábago y Terán in 1761, and some of the early California-bound American travelers passed through Castle Gap and Horsehead Crossing . Crane County was formed in 1887 from land previously assigned to Tom Green County the same year, but for many years the area's scant rainfall deterred settlement. In 1890 only fifteen people lived in Crane County; as late as 1900 the United States census enumerated only fifty-one people and twelve ranches in the county. Almost 17,650 cattle and 3,750 sheep were counted that year. The county seems to have experienced a brief burst of settlement during the first years of the twentieth century; Crane, the future county seat, became a post office in 1908, while census figures show that in 1910 there were seventy-one farms or ranches in the county, and that the population by that year had risen to 331. Almost no crop production was reported for the county in 1910, however, and in any case most of the new settlers had moved away by 1920, when only eight ranches, thirty-seven people, and about 4,700 cattle were reported. As late as 1918 the county had no roads, although the Texas and Pacific Railway crossed the northwest corner and the Panhandle and Santa Fe crossed the southern tip. The area only began to develop after oil was discovered in the county in 1926, when an oil boom attracted thousands to the county. O. C. Kinnison opened a realty office and platted a townsite for Crane, where he named the streets for his daughters and sons. He also invited a preacher to hold services in the area; according to county tradition, local gamblers resented the gesture and gave Kinnison a beating for it. Crane County was attached to Ector County for administrative purposes until 1927, but with (according to one estimate) 6,000 oil boomers in the area by that time, the county was ready for organization. The town of Crane, bustling with as many as 4,500 fortune-seekers, was designated as the county seat, and citizens organized to build a courthouse. Water was a scarce commodity. People paid a dollar a barrel for water brought from a well seven miles east of town, or, if prosperous, paid $2.25 a barrel for better water from Alpine. Water was too precious then for any use but cooking or home-made whiskey; women sent their laundry to El Paso. According to the census 2,221 people were living in Crane County in 1930. The county became one of the most productive oil counties in the state. In 1938 more than 5,494,600 barrels of oil was produced in the area; in 1944 more than 9,557,500 barrels was pumped, and in 1948 production was 16,851,698 barrels. Almost 27,377,

McCamey, on U.S. Highway 67 five miles east of the Pecos River in southwestern Upton County, developed almost overnight as a result of the discovery of oil nearby. In September 1925 wildcatter George B. McCamey brought in Baker No. 1. A Corpus Christi real estate firm, Burleson and Johns, with Lon McKinney, a man named Brooks, Taylor Emerson, and A. W. Carruthers, organized the original townsite company the day after the well came in. The town grew from a siding established on the Kansas City, Mexico and Orient Railway to supply the new field. George Port, land agent for the railroad, named the town. By 1926 seven major oil companies had leases in the surrounding area. A post office was established on March 5, 1926, and the town was incorporated on December 27 of that year. Within six months a dusty tent and frame city of 10,000 people had arisen, and the McCamey Tri-County Record , the town's first newspaper, had been founded by W. D. Riser. The early years in McCamey were filled with the typical boomtown problems of disorder and lawlessness associated with such rapid growth. The McCamey oilfield had two significant distinctions. One was the unsuccessful attempt in 1928 by the Shell Oil Company to build a mammoth storage reservoir to hold the surplus oil until pipelines to Houston refineries could be constructed. The huge earthen tank had concrete liners designed to hold a million barrels of oil, but the weight of the crude oil was too great for the underlying limestone. Cracks developed, and the tank began to leak. No solution could be found, and the project was abandoned in 1929. The McCamey field also had one of the first refineries in West Texas, operated by Humble Oil Company ( see EXXON COMPANY, U.S.A. ) from 1927 until 1932. The McCamey Independent School District was established in 1927. A high school and an elementary school building were completed by 1930. By 1932 the community had declined considerably in population due to a combination of the Great Depression , oil discoveries in East Texas, and production changes in the West Texas fields. By 1940 the population had shrunk to 2,600. McCamey has remained an oil-producing town, with several large pipelines and storage tank facilities in the area. Its businesses supply the surrounding oilfields and ranching territory. The 1980 census listed a population of 2,436. In 1984 McCamey had seventy businesses, several churches, a bank, a newspaper, a public library, and a museum. The Mendoza Trail Museum, named for Juan Domínguez de Mendoza , a Spanish explorer who passed through West Texas, opened in 1966. In 1990 the population was 2,493. The population dropped to 1,805 in 2000.