HISTORY OF CRANE
The history of Crane, Missouri, dates back to the late 1800's when the community on the south side of Crane Creek was known by another name, Hickory Grove. Around 1890, the community needed a Post Office, but there was already a town in Missouri named Hickory Grove. So residents decided to call their town Crane, naming it after the creek and for the cranes (herons) that lived along its banks.
After the turn of the century, the first railroad west of the Mississippi was built and reached Crane in December of 1904. A division terminal was established in June of 1905 and a roundhouse was built in 1906. The remains can still be seen along the railway on the outskirts of town on Roundhouse Road. The Springfield branch was built in 1905.

After the railway came to Crane, businesses started building across the creek, where Main Street is now located. The streets of Crane were laid out parallel to the railroad and thus do not run square with the map. Many of the old merchants moved businesses across the creek and railroad.

One of the oldest operating businesses in Crane is the Crane Chronicle/Stone County Republican. This newspaper observed its 100th year in existence on June 19, 1986. For that issue the volume number was 100 and issue number 1. Although the Crane Chronicle/Stone County Republican is not 100 years old; through a series of mergers, this newspaper has served Stone County and the surrounding area for over 100 years. The Stone County News Oracle was founded in Galena in 1886. It was the leading newspaper in the county and one source said it had purchased the Oracle, which may have published as early as 1884, so the newspaper may be older than records indicate. The Crane Chronicle, which was established in Crane in 1904, some years later purchased the Stone County News Oracle and the two merged. Leon Fredrick, who purchased the Crane Chronicle in 1965 and published both papers, founded the Stone County Republican in 1957. The present owners published the two newspapers until 1982 when they were merged into the present Crane Chronicle/Stone County Republican. Country correspondents have played, and continue to play, an important role in the success of this newspaper. Its office still contains some of the old printing components that were used in the eary years. All issues of the newspapers are on microfilm at the State Historical Society, 1020 Lowry Street, Columbia, Missouri.

One of the first restaurants was the Morning Star Restaurant which catered to the railroad men. The Portland Hotel was built soon after and was located on the corner of Commerce Sreet and Railroad Avenue. The first bank was the Bank of Crane, chartered in Sept. 10, 1904. One of the oldest Factories was the Tomato Canning Factory starting in the early 1900s. Crane has been the home of Crane Manufacturing, Inc., G-B Manufacturing Company, Belmont Casket Company, the Oscar Carter's Show Business, a Blacksmith shop, the Doggett Drug Store, Hilton Hardware, Red Front, Fenton's, Stone County Oil Company, Crane Farmers Exchange, Russell Lumber Co., Hilton Furniture and many other businesses established themselves in Crane soon after the turn of the century.

Several new businesses came to Crane because of the thriving railroad, and many new families established their homes here. Many colorful characters have lived and worked and left their marks upon this community during the past 97 years.
The Crane Broiler Festival started in 1952, under the sponsorship of the Southwest Broiler Growers Association and the Crane Metro Club plus the community of Crane and surrounding area. Today, it is a four-day event with a carnival, hundreds of craft booths, and entertains and serves over twenty thousand guests.

Crane Creek is one the few areas where there are McCloud Trout. In a recent issue of Fly Fishing, the writers talk about the McCloud River and the special place it has in angling history as one of the two original sources of rainbow trout stocked in all the streams where we now find them. Since then, trout in the McCloud have interbred with browns and hatchery cultured rainbows so it's virtually certain the magnificent strain of original rainbow no longer exists in that river. Of all the streams in the Midwest stocked from the McCloud, only a handful have self-sustaining populations.
One of these is Crane Creek and there's a good chance that the rainbows in Crane Creek are genetically pure McCloud trout. Since the rainbow fry were dumped in from railway cars in the 1880s, there's no record of Crane Creek ever being stocked again. If that is so, Crane Creek is one of only five or six places in the world where the pure strain still exists.

Today Crane is a prosperous town offering all the necessities for residents of a small community. Included are restaurant's, many antiques & collectible shops, medical facilities, a pharmacy, beauty salons, banks, postal service, real-estate and insurance offices, auto dealers, tire and auto services, grocery stores, fast food service, churches, attorneys and much more.

Crane, Missouri has easy access to larger shopping areas and entertainment. It is located approximately 30 miles from Springfield and even closer to Silver Dollar City, Table Rock Lake and Branson, Mo.