[6][7] Crawford had been designed specifically for prohibition enforcement service and assumed Rum Patrol duty 27 March 1927 with a temporary home-port of Sault Sainte Marie, Michigan and later a permanent station on 28 September 1927 at Two Harbors, Minnesota.

[8] With the end of prohibition, she assumed a more traditional role of a Coast Guard cutter, that of search and rescue, law enforcement, merchant vessel inspection, and defense training.

In mid-1941 Crawford was converted for use to service aids-to-navigation due to a shortage of buoy tenders but was later transferred to U.S. Navy control with patrol duties out of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and reconfigured as a sub-chaser.

[2] After Crawford was transferred to Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution she underwent a renovation at Munro Shipyard at Boston, Massachusetts to increase her fuel capacity.

On 13 May 1986 USCGC Manitou stopped the 125 ft (38 m) M/V Sun Bird in Seventh District waters and her boarding team discovered 40,000 lb (18,000 kg) of marijuana hidden aboard.

The boarding team then located the vessel's builder's plate and learned that the Sun Bird was the decommissioned "buck-and-a-quarter" cutter Crawford.