Today in 1893: Wellesley College Professor Pens "America, the Beautiful."

While Wellesley may not be known for its "purple mountains majesty," the town has a connection to that and the rest of "America, the Beautiful." 

The Associated Press, via Huffington Post, includes this item in their 'Today in History' review:

In 1893, Wellesley College professor Katharine Lee Bates visited the summit of Pikes Peak, where she was inspired to write the original version of her poem "America the Beautiful."
That year, Bates was teaching a summer class in Colorado Springs, and took a day trip up to Pike's Peak in a prairie wagon. It was there she first wrote the essay which would later turn into the famous poem. The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History notes that, while Bates wrote the poem in 1893, she didn't think about publishing it for another two years, until July 4, 1895. 

See more about the history of the song on the Gilder Lehrman Institute website. 

The song has been suggested as a replacement for "The Star-Spangled Banner" as the country's national anthem--according to About.com's Folk Music section, without much success.