When Katharine Lee Bates, author of “America the Beautiful,” stood atop Colorado’s Pikes Peak in 1893, “purple mountain majesties” and “fruited plains” extended in all directions below, largely unbroken until the horizon.
If Bates were alive and made the climb today, she would gaze out on a landscape that, while no less breathtaking, has changed dramatically: roads and transmission lines now climb mountain passes to the west; new homes tuck themselves into fire-prone forests to the north; abandoned mines hide to the south; and Colorado Springs, my hometown, spreads to the east.
The above excerpt was originally published in Real Clear Policy.
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