On US 385 and Hwy 329 in eastern Crane County, the namesake town is the seat and only town of the county, and has the county's only post office, which was founded in 1908. The discovery of oil in the county in 1926 led to the county's organization the next year and to Crane's development as an oil boomtown.
Crane's population was reported as 1,420 in 1940, and as 3,622 in 1980, when the town had a library, a swimming pool, and some 104 businesses. These included a steel foundry, a concrete plant, a nursing home, and a hospital.
By the 1980s the town was the service center for the region's flourishing oil industry. In 1990 the population of Crane was reported as 3,533.