America the Beautiful was written by Katharine Lee Bates (lyrics), and Samuel A. Ward (music). Strangely enough, the two never met - Bates originally wrote the words as a poem, first published in 1895. Ward had originally written the music for a different hym in 1882. Ward's music combined with the Bates poem was first published in 1910 and titled "America the Beautiful". Bates, an English professor at Wellesley College, had taken a train trip to Colorado Springs, Colorado, to teach a short summer school session at Colorado College. Several of the sights on her trip inspired her, and they found their way into her poem, including the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago, the "White City" with its promise of the future contained within its gleaming white buildings; the wheat fields of America's heartland Kansas, through which her train was riding on July 16; and the majestic view of the Great Plains from high atop Pikes Peak.
