Letter from Gerald Hitt
History – October 2007 – Colorado Central Magazine
Hello, you two:
This is about “Where was the Home on the Range?” in your September edition.
I have enclosed a copy of “The Western Home,” from 1871. The credit goes to a poem by a Dr. Brewster M. Higley of Smith County, Kansas. Your article did mention the same version in the Smith County Register in 1873, but since poems normally precede songs, I believe Mr. Higley’s poem predates all the other versions in your article.
Thank you,
Gerald Hitt
Albuquerque
Two verses of “The Western Home” from 1871:
Oh, give me the land,
Where the bright diamond sand,
Throws its light on the glittering stream,
Where glideth along,
The graceful white swan,
Like a maid in her heavenly dream.
Oh, give me the gale
Of the Solomon vale
Where the life stream of buoyancy flows
On the banks of the Beaver
Where seldom, if ever,
Any poisonous herbiage doth grow.
