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. 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 Dr. 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.