America's Almost National Anthem

When Katharine Lee Bates traveled across the United States, she wrote more than postcards home. Before the trip was over, the Massachusetts educator had composed most of a poem that would become a secular hymn and beloved patriotic song: "America the Beautiful."

Bates, a professor at Wellesley College, journeyed to Colorado in 1893 to teach. She had been jotting down impressions about the landscape since she left Boston. But her poem really came together after ascending Pike's Peak in a wagon emblazoned "Pike's Peak or Bust."

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