Center for the Study of the North American West

About the Center

An interdisciplinary center at Stanford University dedicated to enriching Western scholarship. The Center brings together scholars, policy-makers, journalists, and civic leaders for new conversations about the past, present, and future of Western places--from Canada to Mexico, from the Great Plains to the Pacific Rim.

Center News

Walk the Farm 2008: Stanford Waterways, April 26, 2008
Bill Lane Center for the Study of the North American West Walks the Farm in Search of Water
On Saturday, April 26, 2008, Professors David Kennedy and Richard White of the Bill Lane Center for the Study of the North American West led an intrepid group of 20 Stanford faculty, researchers, and students on a walk covering more than 20 miles of Stanford lands examining issues of water conservation and water resource management.

The group met with researchers, ranchers, farmers and University officials discussing the Hetch Hetchy supply lines, the San Francisquito, Los Trancos, Corte Madero, and Bear Creeks, and the Lagunita, Felt and Searsville Lakes as they cross the land hydrating plants, animals and university students.

A great deal of the day's route was on privately held by leaseholders and they graciously shared their love of the ranching and farming life that keeps them close to the land. Rancher George Parker met the hikers on horseback along the trail to talk about managing a herd of cattle. David Murdoch of Glenoaks Equestrian Center, Giselle Turchett of Deer Creek Pastures, Tom Hubbard of Webb Ranch, and Kevin Chambers of Portola Valley Equestrian Facility offered rest stops and insights into the challenges of managing an equestrian facility.

Portola Valley Mayor Maryann Moise Derwin and Menlo Park Mayor Andrew Cohen joined the group as they hiked through the hills of Portola Valley. Jasper Ridge Administrative Director Philippe Cohen and Stanford Civil & Environmental Engineering Professor David Freyberg offered unique and extremely valuable guided tours of the restricted Jasper Ridge Biological Reserve and Searsville Dam. Ryan Navratil of the San Francisquito Watershed Council provided ongoing commentary on the environmental factors involved in water use, conservation and management. Stanford Archivist Maggie Kimball shared from her vast store of facts about the important Stanford sites along the way.

Tom Zigterman and Marty Laporte of Stanford Utilities were essential guides showing the group historic and current wells, the Fish Ladder, the Cardinal Cogenerator Facility and their impact on the use of water on campus. Ted Tucholski shared the University's current and future plans for irrigating campus.

Mark Twain once said, "In the West, whiskey is for drinking; water is for fighting over." The "2008 Walk the Farm" event provided a peaceful way for people to link their many different perspectives, needs, and plans for using and conserving the water throughout Stanford's Waterways.
San Francisco Chronicle
Palo Alto Weekly
Stanford Daily

Q: What measures more than 336 by 208 feet but has one of the smallest “footprints” on campus?
A: The Bill Lane Center’s new home - The Jerry Yang & Akiko Yamazaki Environment & Energy (“Y2E2”) Building!
Here's why!
Come Visit Us at:
473 Via Ortega MC 4225
Stanford University
Stanford, CA 94305
Directions
ABC-News 7 Video of Y2E2

Bill Lane Center Summer Internships in Yellowstone and San Francisco Bay still Available
Apply immediately

Bill Lane Center for the Study of the North American West Receives
$500,000 Endowment Gift from George and Mary Lou Shott

Faculty News
David M. Kennedy Named Australian American Leadership Dialogue Scholar
November 2007 -
Professor David M. Kennedy, Donald J. McLachlan Professor of History and Co-Director of the Bill Lane Center for the Study of the North American West at Stanford University, has been named the 2007 Leadership Dialogue Scholar by the Australian American Leadership Dialogue, a private organization based in Australia with the mission to strengthen the political, economic, and cultural ties between Australia and the U.S. Complete article

Lane Center Co-Director Richard White
Picture This: Spatial History Lab Opens New Windows on the Past
Stanford Magazine, Nov/Dec 2007 - Article by Ted Boscia, MA ’07
HISTORIAN RICHARD WHITE always cringed at the standard geographer’s lament that he and his colleagues approach history as if it occurred on the head of a pin. Now he’s trying to do something about it. Behind a $1.6 million award from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, last summer White launched a spatial history lab at Stanford—a place to mash up centuries-old data and sophisticated, web-based mapping and animation technologies. Complete article
Explore the Spatial History Project
WHO MOVED MY GLACIER? December 23, 2007
Spatial History Project's Associate Director Jon Christensen published an Op-Ed in The New York Times
“WE don’t need no stinking G.P.S.,” said our guide. It was getting late. And dark. We were descending from the summit of Glacier Peak in the Cascade Range, and our guide wasn’t sure where we were. It was unfamiliar terrain — the kind we’re all going to have to get used to traveling through and living in...Complete article

Reading and Resources

The Spatial History Project at Stanford is a part of the Bill Lane Center for the Study of the North American West.
It is made possible by the generous funding of the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. The project brings together scholars working on projects at the intersection of geography and history using Geographic Information Systems (GIS) in their research. While enthusiastic about GIS, which offers a common framework for this research, the Spatial History Project is gearing up to move beyond GIS, to create tools to harvest useful information from large heterogeneous datasets of maps, images, and texts, and create dynamic, interactive digital visualizations for analyzing and representing change over space and time. The project involves three principal research projects directed by history professors Richard White and Zephyr Frank and PhD candidate Jon Christensen.
To visit The Spatial History Project , click the logo.
Recently in the News: Jon Christensen's Op-Ed "Who Moved My Glacier?" The New York Times December 23, 2007
"Spatial History Lab Opens New Windows on the Past" Stanford Report, Nov/Dec 2007

A Curricular Website for High School Teachers. The Center is pleased to present an online high-school curriculum committed to expanding and enriching students’ perceptions of the West. To visit Exploring the West , click the logo.

History Now: The American West
“The present American West is a creation of history rather than geography,” writes Center Co-Director Richard White in the latest edition of History Now, a quarterly journal published by the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History. “There has never been a single West; American Wests come and go.” Read the full article, and other essays by some of North America’s leading scholars of the West, by clicking here.

Conservation Now Outpaces Development in the West
Land trusts are now protecting more land than gets developed each year across the western United States, according to a new census by the Land Trust Alliance. But conservation is doing much better in some states than others. Jon Christensen analyzes the data and provides links to the sources and news accounts. Click here to read.

The Bill Lane Center for the Study of the North American West is dedicated to promoting understanding of the North American West's distinctive regional identity and enriching its social, economic, environmental, political, and cultural vitality.
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