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Brewster Martin Higley VI, MD (November 30, 1823 – December 9, 1911) was an otolaryngologist who became famous for writing "My Western Home". Originally written in 1871 or 1872 and published under the title "My Western Home" in the Smith County Pioneer in the fall of 1873, possibly December, this poem later became the original lyrics for the famous American folk song "Home on the Range".
"Home on the Range" (Roud No. 3599) is a classic cowboy song, sometimes called the "unofficial anthem" of the American West. Dr. Brewster M. Higley (also spelled Highley) of Smith County, Kansas, wrote the lyrics as the poem "My Western Home" in 1872 or 1873, with at least one source indicating it was written as early as 1871.
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Home on the Range. Dr. Brewster M. Higley VI, originally of Rutland, Ohio, was an otolaryngologist who moved from Indiana to Smith County in 1871 under the Homestead Act. at first Higley lived in a one-room dugout on his homestead 14 miles northwest of Smith Center, where he soon became a county officer. Soon he was living in a small cabin ...
Jan 29, 2023 · In the 1940s, a printing of Dr. Higley’s poem from 1874 was discovered in the Kirwin Chief, and the song was officially brought home to Kansas. It became the official state song on June 30, 1947. While critics have said “Home on the Range” doesn’t ‘sell’ Kansas enough, all attempts to change the state song have gone nowhere.
A few years after writing his poem, Higley married his fifth wife and in 1886 the couple moved to Arkansas; Higley died in Oklahoma in 1911. His homestead eventually ended up as the property of ...
Jan 23, 2022 · This 1946 brochure, published a year before “Home on the Range” became the state song of Kansas, includes the original poem by Brewster Higley (Michael G. Saft) “Dr. Brewster Higley was an eccentric character,” wrote his friend, editor W. H. Nelson, in a 1914 edition of the Smith County Pioneer. Nelson recalled Higley, an amateur poet ...
Sep 29, 2020 · Dr. Brewster M. Higley had some troubles when he homesteaded in north central Kansas in 1872. There was “a little problem with the bottle,” and he’d already gone through four wives. But he had no trouble voicing the nirvana he found on his farm along West Beaver Creek in Smith County. As he sat on the bank one day, he penned a poem titled ...
