News & Events

Mid-America News
Show Calendar
State Event Calendars

Regular Features

The Antique Detective
Antique Detective Q&A
Common Sense Antiques
Refurnished Thoughts
Traveling with Ken
Good Eye
Books for Collectors

Directories & Classifieds

The Finder: Unique Shops
Lodgings Directory
Museum Directory
  Aviation Museums
Wineries in the Heartland

Classifieds
Web Links

Archived Features

Antiquing in Colorado
Dealer Profile Archive
Editor's Notebook
Heirloom Recipes
Helpful Hints
   for Collectors
Is This An Antique?
Past Cover Features
Reflecting History

2005 Best Of Winners
Destinations 2006

Discover Mid-America — March 2005

‘Home on the Range’ author homesteaded in Kansas

Back in the 1930s, as many Americans suffered through the Great Depression, a song also ran through their heads: “Home on the Range.”

The lyrics romanticized the American Plains, where the “buffalo roam and the deer and the antelope play, and the skies are not cloudy all day.” It was a song of hope to those struggling to survive — and it was easy to forget that the buffalo had mostly been slaughtered, and the deer and antelope were unwelcome trespassers on western ranches. When President Roosevelt declared the song to be his favorite in 1932, singers all over the U.S., from Gene Autry to Frank Sinatra, rushed to record it.

Its creation all began in a small cabin in Smith County in northern Kansas, about 10 miles from the Nebraska border. In 1871, Dr. Brewster Higley, a physician from Indiana, got a wanderlust for the Great Plains and homesteaded in Smith County, building a small cabin on Beaver Creek. He loved the beauty of the plains, with their waving grasslands, wild flowers and solitude. In his dirt-floor cabin, between visits to his homesteader neighbors, Dr. Higley wrote poetry.

In 1873, one of his neighbors, a man named Trube Reese, found a poem of Higley’s titled “My Western Home.” Reese persuaded the doctor to turn it into a song. That year the poem was published in the Kirwin Chief, a local newspaper. Higley asked Dan Kelley, a fiddle player in the Harlan Brothers Orchestra, a band in nearby Gaylord, KS, to set the poem to music.

According to Steve Lichteig with National Public Radio, the song quickly took on a life of its own. Settlers and cowboys passing through the area spread the song across the country.

Tom Averill, a Kansas scholar and writer, said, “Everybody changed the words to suit the place they were from. So it became ‘My Colorado Home’ and ‘My Arizona Home.’”

Averill added that Higley’s poem and Kelley’s music were “probably forgotten within a few years.” Some changes to the original words became the accepted version. Averill said that the words “home on the range” never appear in Higley’s original poem.

Texas singer Vernon Dalhardt made the first commercial recording of the song, and other singers quickly picked up on its growing popularity, especially after Roosevelt’s endorsement.

Then in 1935, a court case caused the song to be dropped from the airwaves for a time. An Arizona couple filed suit against NBC Radio and several publishers, claiming authorship of the song. Lawyers investigating their claim discovered the original poem in the files of the Kirwin, KS Chief, and the case was dropped.

In 1947, “Home on the Range” was adopted as the official state song of Kansas. As far as is known, neither Higley nor Kelley received any compensation for their creative efforts. Higley died in 1911.

Higley’s cabin can still be seen today. Located near a private home on a country road less than a mile from Hwy. 8, northwest of Smith Center, the cabin contains the actual doctor’s bag used by Higley, along with old tools and household items.

On the walls are fading documents, including Higley’s medical certificate, issued by the State of Kansas. A local woman, Karen Panter, looks after the site, but when my wife and I visited the cabin in the summer of 2004 there was no one around. There is no admission charge. Visitors can photograph as they please, and view the cabin’s interior through the windows, although they can’t enter it. A small parking area and turn-around is available. Otherwise, the site is much like it was in 1871 when Dr. Higley arrived at his homestead.

Discover Mid-America founder and Senior Contributing Editor Ken Weyand files regular reports on notable Midwest destinations. He can be reached at kweyand@gbronline.com.

> Traveling with Ken Archive — past columns