The Lane family moved from Canada to California in 1871. Lane worked as a journalist to finance his college education and later (1891) became a part owner and the editor of the Tacoma Daily News. He attended Hastings College of Law (San Francisco) and was admitted to the bar in 1888. Lane practiced in San Francisco, he entered politics in 1898 when he was elected city attorney, a post to which he was twice reelected. After running unsuccessfully for governor of California (1902) and for mayor of San Francisco (1903), he was appointed to the Interstate Commerce Commission in 1905 and served briefly as its chairman in 1913. In that year he was named secretary of the interior by Pres. Woodrow Wilson. During his seven years in that post Lane promoted greater autonomy for American Indians, and encouraged development in the West and Alaska. At Lane's urging, Congress in 1916 created the National Park Service; Lane appointed as its first director the noted conservationist Stephen Tyng Mather.