Montana's big sky inspired many poets, including Bob Fletcher, whose verses beginning "Don't fence me in" celebrated the wide-open West, the stars, the breeze, the sage, the cottonwood trees, and the Rocky Mountains. Fletcher, the father of the state's historical highway markers, first saw them erected in the 1930s. In 1934, Cole Porter bought Fletcher's poem, and it became one of Porter's greatest hits. Fletcher did not receive credit for composing the famous lyrics that inspired the hit song "Don't Fence Me In" until 1954.