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Perhaps few western poems are better known than Arthur Chapman's "Out Where the West Begins."
Legend has it that Chapman dashed off the poem for his "Center Shots" column in the Denver Republican when the Western states' governors were arguing about where the West begins, and that he was amazed at the attention it received.
The dust jacket of his 1921 novel, Mystery Ranch, has this to say about the poem:
:" . . . Today it is perhaps the best-known bit of verse in America. It hangs framed in the office of the Secretary of the Interior at Washington. It has been quoted in Congress, and printed as campaign material for at least two Governors. It has crossed both the Atlantic and Pacific, while throughout this country it may be found pinned on walls and pasted in scrapbooks innumerable. . . [his poems] possess a rich Western humor such as has not been heard in American poetry since the passing of Bret Harte."
