The Legend of the Almost Lost

How a team of editors and librarians saved Sunset magazine’s archives—and helped preserve the history of the American West.

Sunset Magazine, especially under the leadership of Bill Lane and his family, shaped trends and ideals of the American West for over a century. In 2015, its vast archive was nearly lost in a downsizing move. Michael Shapiro’s feature in the July edition of Stanford Magazine details the team effort between Sunset staff and Stanford librarians that allowed for Sunset’s vast archives to be preserved through Special Collections, so that researchers might make use of the magazine that, according to the Bill Lane Center’s founding director, David M. Kennedy, “hasn’t just been a mirror reflecting the West—it was an active agent in promoting certain ways of life.”