Home on the Range

The doctor behind the song left more than one home behind. Brewster Higley, born in Rutland, Ohio, studied at La Porte Medical College in Indiana and began practice at Pomeroy, Ohio, after graduating in 1849. He married five times. His fourth marriage, in 1866 to the widow Mercy Ann McPherson, was so stormy that in 1871 he left his children with relatives in Illinois and moved quietly to Smith County, Kansas, to homestead. That marriage ended by default in February 1875; a month later he married Sarah Clemons. He spent most of his remaining years in Kansas.

What the plaque says

"Home on the Range" Author's Grave in Fairview Cemetery Dr. Brewster Higley (b. 1822) of Indiana wrote this song when he lived in Kansas. The words were printed in a local paper (1873), and became a favorite song along the cattle trails. First published in 1910, the author never saw a copy nor received a cent of roy- alty. His last home was in Shawnee, Okla., where he died May 11, 1911. Oklahoma Historical Society and State Highway Commission, 1959

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Citizen Potawatomi Nation Cultural Heritage Center — 3.3 mi
  The Citizen Potawatomi Nation's national museum and archive in Shawnee, telling a Great Lakes people's road through Kansas to Indian Territory in the Nation's own words and objects.
• Boley Historic District — 26 mi
  The downtown of the largest of Oklahoma's All-Black towns, praised by Booker T. Washington, squeezed by Jim Crow and white land oaths, bankrupt in 1939 and still living today.
• Seminole Nation Museum — 27 mi
  A community museum in Wewoka, capital of the Seminole Nation of Oklahoma, telling the Seminole story from Florida to Indian Territory and the town that John Horse's people founded in 1849.

More markers nearby

• Shawnee Mission — 3.5 mi
• Birthsite of Jim Thorpe — 10 mi
• Mekasukey Academy — 16 mi
• Birthplace of Jim Thorpe — 16 mi