 Crocker also was involved in the development of public improvements in the area, especially those devised by Kilbourn.Crocker was canal commissioner in 1839, president of the Milwaukee Board of Trade in 1850, director of the Milwaukee and Watertown Plank Road and president of the Lake Hydraulic Company in 1852, director of Kilbourn's Milwaukee and Mississippi Railroad and president of the Milwaukee Gas and Light Company in 1853, commissioner reporting on the Fox River Valley Railroad in 1856, receiver for the Portage and La Crosse Division of the Milwaukee and Mississippi Railroad in 1857, and vice-president of the Milwaukee and Prairie du Chien Railroad in 1858.In 1856, a private ship named the "Hans Crocker" was commissioned in Milwaukee.