Rural Kansas road to become Home on the Range Highway

TOPEKA – Kansas is honoring the place where its famous state song was written by designating a nearby road as the Home on the Range Highway.

Gov. Sam Brownback’s office says he signed a bill last week to bestow the designation on K-8 highway in Smith County in north-central Kansas. The new law takes effect July 1.

The designation applies from the road’s junction with U.S. 36 to the Nebraska border, 17 miles to the north.

The words to the state song were written as a poem by Brewster Higley on the bank of West Beaver Creek in Smith County in 1871. The next year, he and friends built a cabin there.

A private foundation is preserving the cabin, and it is off K-8, about 9 miles north of U.S. 36.

This story was originally published April 6, 2015 at 7:30 AM with the headline "Rural Kansas road to become Home on the Range Highway."