In the summer of 1893, while poet and writer Katherine Lee Bates taught english at Colorado College, she ascended Pikes Peak.

Standing upon the summit she was overwhelmed by the resplendence of the mountain, and the seemingly endless view of the nation she loved.

This experience inspired her to compose the poem America the Beautiful, with Pikes Peak celebrated with the line “For purple mountain majesties, above the fruited plain...”

The Purple Mountain Group at Morgan Stanley commissioned this collection of works by local artists honoring Pikes Peak, lauding its renown as America’s Mountain, and its significance to our community and nation as a whole.