This hay field in Stearns County, Minnesota, looks like the first two lines of “America the Beautiful.” The lyrics begin, “O beautiful for spacious skies, for amber waves of grain…” Katharine Lee Bates published her poem as “Pikes Peak” on July 4, 1895. The composition would have probably drifted into obscurity if composer Samuel Ward had not written the music “Materna” in 1882. The two pieces were combined in 1910, forming one of the United States’ most patriotic songs.
