By MIKE CORN

mcorn@dailynews.net

ATHOL -- It's a familiar refrain, and one El Dean Holthus is pushing hard to keep alive.

It is, after all, the birthplace of "My Western Home," which, set to music, is today considered by some to be the national anthem of country music and long ago was a favorite around the campfire by cowboys heading West.

In 1871, it was little more than the well-penned writing of an isolated physician, living in a dirt-floored cabin measuring only 11 feet by 21 feet with a fireplace to provide his only heat.

Discovered by the friend of a gunshot victim, the poem was set to music.

Today, it's the Kansas state song and known as "Home on the Range."

The words are from Dr. Brewster Higley, written from his limestone and log cabin overlooking the banks of Beaver Creek in northwest Smith County.

More accurately, Holthus is pushing hard to save the Higley Cabin, situated about 8 miles north of Athol.

Saving the cabin might be just a matter of time.

Already the recipient of one Kansas Heritage Grant, architect Mort Plunkett, Hill City, is drawing up what the cabin originally looked like, and what is needed to bring it back to life.

Once that is done, it will be presented to the Kansas State Historical Society for approval, which will then allow the Ellen Rust Living Trust, which owns the cabin, to apply for yet another grant to help restore it.

The restoration could cost up to $100,000, Holthus said, but the trust must have its 20-percent share in hand before a grant can be given.

That amount -- and a bit more -- has been raised through Higley descendent donations, friends of the cabin and a special Michael Martin Murphey benefit concert last week near Wichita.

Country singer Murphey also visited the cabin last week, and sang "Home on the Range" for Holthus.

"That was an emotional thing for me," he said. "He went out and sang 'Home on the Range' for me and a friend who drove him up."

For Holthus, the fund drive is well worth the effort, considering the cabin -- despite the out-of-character stabilization efforts -- is original and still in the same place.

And supporters want it to last.

"It's been here for 140 years," Holthus said. "They want it to last another 200 years."

Restoration will require moving a considerable amount of soil that has settled up against the cabin. It also might require the removal of a house that was built nearby, although, if possible, the Rust Trust would like to keep it to display artifacts and serve as a gift shop.

Despite its remote location, nearly a mile off a lesser-used highway, it's a relatively busy place.

In the course of 11 months, 1,038 people signed the register in the cabin. They came from 32 states and four foreign countries.

"People who drive that mile, they are historians," Holthus said. "And we're betting that everybody didn't register."

In addition to the cabin, the trustees hope to be able to clear away some of the brush along Beaver Creek, to restore it to what it was when Higley lived in the cabin.

A nearby bridge, long abandoned, is being considered to allow access to the west side of the creek, and Holthus received permission -- while providing a tour -- from Robert Kastle, an adjoining landowner, to move ahead with those plans.

For Holthus, it's a dramatic turnaround.

"It was just a chicken house when I was a kid," he said of the cabin his aunt and uncle owned.