Crane High School

Duane's take

Here's my telling of what the official marker has to say about Crane High School. Now, September 30, 1947. The Crane Board of Trustees sat down, looked at a growing community pressing at the seams, and proposed a figure that would make your eyes water just a little: one million and fifty thousand dollars, to build a brand new high school campus.

That was serious money, serious ambition, and they meant every penny of it. The board and Superintendent L.L. Martin went out and hired an architect named Sylvan Blum Haynes, a man noted for designing several other schools and residences, and, not for nothing, the Lubbock County Courthouse, which came in 1950.

Haynes was not a stranger to this kind of work. In fact, the Crane High School, built through his firm Haynes and Kirby, was similar to a design Haynes had already done for a school over in Carlsbad, New Mexico. But here is where the story picks up a certain weight.

This was Haynes' final Art Deco design. His last one. And he went out swinging.

What rose up in Crane was a horizontal massing of buff brick with concrete ornamentation, featuring regular and grouped pilasters, and a crenellated entrance tower standing watch at the front like it had something to prove. When the doors finally opened in 1949, Crane had itself a school worthy of all that planning, all that money, and one architect's closing statement in a style he clearly loved.

What the marker says

On Sep. 30, 1947, the Crane Board of Trustees proposed $1,050,000 to build a new high school campus for the growing community. The board and Supt. L.L. Martin hired architect Sylvan Blum Haynes, noted for designing several other schools and residences and the Lubbock County Courthouse (1950). The Crane High School by architectural firm Haynes and Kirby was similar to Haynes’ previous design for the school in Carlsbad, New Mexico. This was Haynes’ final Art Deco design, a horizontal massing of buff brick with concrete ornamentation, featuring regular and grouped pilasters and a crenellated entrance tower. The new school opened in 1949. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 2016