Pikes Peak, though not Colorado’s highest peak, became especially well known through “America the Beautiful,” after Katharine Lee Bates was inspired there to write a song praising the country’s natural beauty. Much of the landscape before the mountain is part of the National Forest System, including the 1.1 million acres of Pike National Forest. In the early 1890s, public demand for protection of forests and watersheds in the western United States from exploitation led the government to create Forest Reserves. In 1905, these lands were transferred to the Forest Service, a newly created agency in the United States Department of Agriculture, and in 1907 they were renamed National Forests. Today, this designation covers 190 million acres across the United States. Gifford Pinchot, the first Chief of the U.S. Forest Service, argued in 1910 that the nation had to choose whether to use and conserve its rich lands for itself and its descendants or destroy them. Early forest rangers packed mules, fought fires, rode boundaries, tracked poachers, and carried out many other duties.