[2] The new company was named Crane in recognition of George Crane, a British foundry owner whose kind understanding and support backed their desire to hire away his foundry's long time superintendent, ironmaster David Thomas, who had achieved regular successes in employing the new hot blast process and successfully worked out necessary additional methods to not only smelt iron, but produce fine quality cast iron and pig iron ready to make steel.

These results positioned Crane's company's strongly to dominate British steel and iron manufacturing for decades.

LC&CN's Hazard not only hired him and paid his expenses to come to America and set up an ironworks using the new technique, but made him a partner in the enterprise in agreement of 31 December 1838.

By late winter, LC&NC was seeking suitable real estate, with water power and access to iron ores.

In an effort to revive Eastern iron mining in the face of competition from Minnesota, Crane took part in Thomas Edison's attempts to develop a magnetic ore beneficiation process.

In 1837, the Yniscedwyn Works in Wales became the first ironworks in Britain to produce anthracite iron in commercial quantities, by use of the hot blast method.

[3] This discovery promised to provide a large market for anthracite, and the managers of the Lehigh Coal & Navigation Company wished to duplicate the process in the United States.

The company was named in honor of Crane: it was organized on April 23, 1839 and incorporated on May 16, 1839, under a general act of the Pennsylvania Legislature.

[9] Renewed efforts to palliate the local farmers were successful, and the plank road was renamed and rechartered on April 20, 1854 as the Catasauqua and Fogelsville Railroad.

This began with the construction of a private wagon and rail bridge, which the company opened to the public, across the Lehigh River in 1847 to facilitate ore shipment.

(The Central Railroad of New Jersey would build a line along the Lehigh River in 1867 on the same side as the furnaces, giving Crane Iron yet another rail inlet and outlet.

The plant trackage ultimately totaled 3.31 miles (5.33 km), and was worked by a number of 0-4-0 and 0-6-0 switchers, including one built on-site at the ironworks in the 1880s.

During the 1890s, Crane Iron also participated in the experiments of Thomas Edison, who was attempting to rejuvenate the then-moribund Eastern magnetite mines by magnetic beneficiation.

Initial attempts were frustrated by the dusty nature of the finely-ground ore (which made it susceptible to losses both in transit and during the furnace blast), and the process ultimately proved uneconomical in competition with cheap Mesabi Range ores, which came to replace locally-mined ore.[15] In 1899, the company was sold to the Empire Steel and Iron Company and became their Crane Works.