Historical Crane County
Page 2

Mayfield Ranch
Ruins of the Harve Mayfield Ranch
Seven miles East of Crane.

Table of Contents

  • History of Crane County
    Comments by Mr. E.N.Beane

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    History of Crane County
    Comments by Mr. E. N. Beane
    Written by Rubye Coffey and is typed
    as told to her in December 1967
    by Mr. E. N. Beane

    Submitted by Mary Ann Bullard Reed

    Mayfield Ranch   Mayfield Ranch
    Crane County was created in 1887, being carved out of Tom Green County. Crane County was named for Dr. William Carey Crane, who was president of Baylor University from 1863 through 1885.

    The first time I was in Crane County was in 1921.  My father and five other men drove from Colorado City to the Pecos River to fish.  My brother and I were the only boys in the group, needless to say the only bite we got was from mosquitos and turtles.  The road we traveled from Midland, crossed our Crane-Odessa highway about one and one half miles north of town or about where our present Radio Station is located.

    Little did I dream that six years later this area would be my home for forty three years, but that is the way it has worked out.  Someone asked me the other day if I had lived here all my life and I said "No, not yet."

    Crane County was organized in 1927.  I well remember it rained all day but it did not dampen the spirits of the pioneers in the least.

    The first elected Officials of Crane County are as follows.
    County Judge,  Ben F. Allen,  Sheriff,  Jack Allen   (The Allens were not related)  County Attorney,  Tom G. Jackson,  County & District Clerk,  Edna Heagy Smith
    Treasurer,  B. C. Weir,  Tax Assessor,  M. G. Damron,  County Commissioners
    J.Alvin Seward, E. W. Waddell, Ewell McNight, Jay McGee.
    Justice of the Peace was Carl Cox, we elected one justice and one constable at that time, the constable was Ben F. Coleman.

    The first post master was Claude H. Martin assisted by his wife Essie, Mrs.
    Jack Allen and his sister Mrs. Edna Heagy, and later in 1927 by yours truley Mr. E. N. Beane.

    The two men who laid out the townsite were Mr. L. P. Cox and O. C. Kinnison. They brought the land from a Mr. Stephens, their office was located between the location of Mr. McKays grocery building and the present site of Southern Union Gas Co.  Mr. Kinnison was the most progressive of the two, he wanted very much to have a clean town, but some of the gambling element did not. Kinnison telegraphed the Governor of Texas to send in Texas Rangers to stop the gambling.  This ambition for a clean town was the cause of Mr. Kinnison getting a severe beating, to which I was a wittness, being employed directly across the street from where the fracas began.  The gamblers took turns hitting him with their pistols as he ran across the street.  I witnessed this brutality from Mark Halsey Drug Store.  Mr. Kinnison immediately sought refuge under the counter, where along with others I was eager to join him.
    There was a large gambling house from which the above mentioned three were operating.

    Among the first to open business places here were,

    DRY GOODS
    Mr. Pat Passur, Hemphill-Yarbough, J. Goldstein (Later Leamans) and Leon Fine.

    GROCERY STORES
    E. W. Myrick, W. T. Caple, Trice E. Damron-Price and R. C. Northstine.

    DRESS SHOP.
    Mrs. S. L. McDowell

    FURNITURE
    Mrs. S. C. Harrell

    AUTO REPAIRS
    Ray Hart and John W. Baker

    HARDWARE
    E. F. Sewell

    AUTO AGENCY
    Winfield-Rogers

    SERVICE STATIONS
    Krouse and Plate, Stanley Brothers

    PICTURE SHOW
    B. C. Weir

    DRUG STORES
    Mark Kalsey, Carl Cox and Lanning Drug, which is now Keltners Drug

    DOCTORS
    Dr. Sam Stewart, Dr. W. B. Lanning, Dr. E. J. Cook, Dr. Ralph Hamilton, and Dr. W. W. Agnew, which was company Doctor for Gulf and Humble Oil Companies, these two oil companies operated a hospital for company employees, located near where the present Gulf Office is now located.  A male nurse was employed there, Mr. Ethel Batson (brother of Mr. Dick Batson)

    HOTELS
    The Henderson, Crane Hotel, Savoy and the most famous or infamous was known as Susies Cot House.

    Here is a true incident that happened the first day I arrived in Crane, if you think prices are high now and I agree that they are, but listen to this, I went into a small cafe just west of where I worked, just as a man was standing at the cash register to pay his check, the cashier said "fifty cents, please," then he blew his top, protesting loudly he said and these are his exact works, "I have been in Europe and Throup and several other counties in Texas, in the pan handle and I have never paid fifty cents for a bowl of Irish Stew." She said "Looking him straight in the eye, Sir, if you eat it here you will pay" which he did and stalked out grumbling.
    I later learned he was Mr. Henderson, operator of the Henderson Hotel.

    CAFES
    Mother's (Story of the first murder and the beginning of the Crane Memorial Cemetery)
    A young filipno cook was first to occupy a spot there.  A victim of a stabbing, July 4, 1927.
    Allreds and The Deluxe Cafe

    LUMBER and HARDWARE STORES
    Mr. Ben F. Allen and William

    FIRST NEWS STAND
    Mrs. Effie High (Mrs. M. F. Clark)

    ICE PLANT
    First and only Ice Plant was owned by Mr. Clayton W. Williams and managed by Oscar Graham.

    PUBLIC UTILITIES
    Electricity, followed by water but our first water was hauled from the Harve Mayfield Ranch some seven miles east of town and sold for one dollar a barrel. Sometimes a barrel of water would not last long, a cow would come along, and using her horns get the number two wash tub off the top and in doing so, would tilt the barrel over.  The water was hauled by Mr. R. V. Melton who is a present day resident.  Later by his brother Noble.  Later water was supplied by the Phillips Petroleum Co.  Then in 1946 the city drilled their own water wells.  The first gas line was laid by a Mr. Gardiner of Oklahoma and managed by Hershel Brown, later was sold to Southern Union Gas Company.
    Telephone Service.... ???

    Crane was attached to Ector County for Judicial purposes.
    Before the oil boom in 1926, there were only eight qualified voters in Crane County.  These voters drove to Odessa to vote and it was necessary most of the time for them to spend the night there.

    The first oil well was completed as a producer in June of 1926 and now Crane County is third in oil production in the state.  The first well drilled by Church and Fields.  Crane County will soon have produced its billionth barrel of oil.

    Our first Court House and School were built in 1928.  The first building to be used as a temporary courthouse is now the location of the Crane News Office.  The first City Hall was located where the first hospital and clinic were built by Dr. S. F. Robinson across the street from Lilley Drug.  This land mark is being torn down to make way for a new park.

    First School Superintendent was F. S. Herron, salary paid at the rate of two hundred and fifty dollars per month.
    Some of the first teachers I remember were, Mrs. F. L. Boyd, Loyce Ann Hicks and Alma Sewell, you will remember her as Mrs. Vernon Stell.

    Items Interesting to Note are how many people lived here prior to the oil boom in 1926 and still live in Crane County, so far as I have been able to ascertain there are three.  They are Mrs. J. McGee, Tom Barnsley and Jerry Cowden.

    The Boy Scouts were organized in 1931 by Judge S. C. Harrell, Judge E. D. Smith and Rev. W. A. Cox.

    I do not have a record of the first churches organized in Crane, but believe it to have been First Baptist.

    First News Paper publisher was Mr. Jack Hyde.

    There were no two story buildings.

    THEN CAME THE DEPRESSION
    Our city now has some thirty civic, social, Fraternal and Veterans organizations. Crane Study Club the first to be organized and federated.  Crane Chapter of The Order of Eastern Star was the first fraternal organization.
    When Crane observed its 40th. anniversary as an organized county, I feel sure that the former citizens who came were surprised to see many beautiful new homes, schools, businesses and fine improvements that have been added in just forty years.
    The landscape has changed but the same spirit of friendliness and good neighbor policy have not.
    We boast of two manufacturing plants...Tubeco whose payroll amounts to an annual $280,000 and our home owned and operated Polystone...Payroll per year amounts to $48,000.

     
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