Fun Fact: 'America The Beautiful' Includes Shout-Out To Chicago

(CBS) -- A song often referred to as the country's unofficial national anthem has ties to the Windy City.

It started as a poem, written by Katharine Lee Bates, and was later turned into a song after it was set to a Samuel Ward hymn. It's name? "America the Beautiful."

On a train ride from Massachusetts to Colorado, Bates took in the country's scenery and composed the poem.

Freelance journalist Lynn Sherr, author of "America the Beautiful, The Stirring True Story Behind Our Nation's Favorite Song," says a stop in Chicago to see the World's Columbian Exposition in 1893 exposed Bates to the White City.

"They were painted white and they were illuminated by this thing which had just been invented, the electric light bulb," Sherr says. "The White City just glowed and Katharine Lee Bates took that and turned that into the 'alabaster cities.'"

Sherr says the poem's line also referenced what Bates saw in the country's future.

"Bates fully understood that cities were problem areas and there was a lot of poverty," she says. "Chicago had a huge number of immigrants in those days. She wanted to see that fixed, she wanted people to get along and she wanted people to live in harmony. That's what the alabaster cities represented to her. It's a perfect song for today."