Welcome to the Bill Lane Center for the American West
Dedicated to advancing scholarly and public understanding of the past, present, and future of western North America, the Center supports research, teaching, and reporting about western land and life
What is the Bill Lane Center?
Learn more about the founding of the Bill Lane Center, Stanford University's academic hub for regional study of western land and life.
What is the West?
Our definition of the American West is expansive and takes into account the many dimensions of the region, from those rooted in geography to those rooted in the cultural and literary imagination.
Rural West in Montana: Culture, Community and the Rural Ties That Bind
We recently presented another successful Rural West conference, hosted in partnership with the the Ivan Doig Center for the Study of the Lands & Peoples of the North American West at Montana State University. Panels focused on rural communities across Montana and the Intermountain West, with scholars and practitioners coming together to share knowledge, innovation, and solutions.
Apply for a paid student research assistant position with the Bill Lane Center
The Bill Lane Center invites students to pursue self-designed or pre-organized projects during the summer of 2026. Research should explore some aspect of Western land and life, which may include explorations of the region's history, arts, and culture; its energy and environment; or Western governance and policy.
The Bill Lane Center and Stanford University Libraries have acquired the California Historical Society Collection
The archive contains over 600,000 items dating back to the 18th century, including original artifacts from the Gold Rush and 1906 San Francisco Earthquake and Fire.
2025: The Year in Review
We look back on 2025, and on 20 years of sustaining the country's premier hub for teaching and scholarship on the American West.
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Twenty years of tackling the American West’s big questions
Since its founding two decades ago, the Bill Lane Center has become a thriving community of students and researchers who examine the American West in all its complexities.
Honoring his extraordinary contributions to the American West, the Bill Lane Center bids “happy trails” to its director, Bruce Cain
For over a decade, Cain has been both envisioning and implementing programming that has solidified the Lane Center’s place as the premier hub for Western scholarship in the country. Cain is not retiring, but he has stepped down as faculty director.
Zephyr Frank appointed new faculty director of the Bill Lane Center for the American West
A professor of history and environmental social sciences at Stanford, Frank will transition into his role at the Lane Center on September 1, 2025.
Recent News
The Colorado River. Photo by Getty Images
