A country doctor named Brewster Higley homesteaded about twenty miles from Smith Center, on the banks of the Beaver Creek, near Solomon River, in Smith County, Kansas, in 1871. He liked to write poems, and shortly after his arrival in Kansas he wrote one entitled "My Western Home." It was set to music by his friend, a druggist and fiddler named Daniel E. Kelley and performed for the first time in 1872..... "Western Home" by Dr. Brewster Higley VI Oh! give me a home where the Buffalo roam, Where the Deer and the Antelope play; Where never is heard a discoraging word, and the sky is not clouded all day. (chorus) A home! A home! Where the Deer and the Antelope play, Where seldom is heard a discouraging word, And the sky is not clouded all day. Oh! give me land where the bright diamond sand, Throws its light from the glittering streams, Where glideth along the graceful white swan, Like the maid in her heavenly dreams. (chorus) A home! A home! Oh! give me a gale of the Solomon vale, Where the life streamswith buoyancy flow; O the banks of the Beaver, where seldom is ever, Any poisonous herbage doth grow. (chorus) A home! A home! How often at night, when the heavens were bright, With the light of the twinkling stars, Have I stood here amazed, and naked as I gazed, Of their glory exceed that of ours. (chorus) A home! A home! I love the wild flowers in this bright land of ours, I love the wild curlew's shrill scream; The buffs and white rocks, and antelope flocks, That graze on the mountains so green. (chorus) A home! A home! The air is so pure and the breeze so free, The zephyrs so balmy and light, That I would not exchange my home here to range, Forever in azures so bright. (chorus) A home! A home! source: Words as reprinted on February 26, 1876 in the Kirwin Chief Newspaper, Vol. 3, no. 14, Kirwin, Kansas First published in the Kirwin Chief on March 21, 1874.... The earliest publication of the poem which became the official state song of Kansas..... Reprinted from the Kansas Historical Quarterly, November 1949.... ....from the book called "The Story of Home on the Range" written by Kirke Mechem published by the Kansas State Historical Society Topeka, Kansas