Sunset Publishing History

In 1898, the Southern Pacific Railroad had a problem. The company was the largest landowner in California, and now that there were direct railroad routes to the Golden State, it was ready to sell land. The problem was California’s image. Eastern magazines had portrayed it as a land of quick money and questionable morals, a young state suitable for speculators but not for upstanding families.

NEW IMAGE FOR THE WEST

To combat negative images etched in minds on the East Coast, the railroad company launched the first-ever Western magazine. Sunset Magazine, named in honor of the Sunset Limited railroad line, was issued in May 1898. Its stated purpose was to “chronicle the world of the West over which the dawn of future commercial and industrial importance is just beginning.” The first issue contained just 16 pages and ran stories on the wonders of Yosemite and the beautiful, garden-filled streets of Los Angeles. It took the good things about Western living and made them seem accessible and possible for the masses.

It turned out to be a self-fulfilling prophecy. As California became the state described in the early issues of the promotion organ, the magazine itself became respectable. One of the early editors, Charles Sedgewick Allen, worked to make it a journalistic force by commissioning the West’s best writers. His vision was of a “dignified and serious” Western-based magazine that challenged Eastern journalism giants such as Atlantic Monthly. As new settlers flooded the West, they were eager for a magazine portraying their new home in an accurate and positive light.

THE LITERARY ERA

In 1914, the railroad company determined that the magazine had served its purpose and sold it to a group of employees. The new owners sought to broaden the scope of the magazine by adding more literary fiction and making it a national publication. Calling Sunset “The West’s Great National Magazine,” it published work by Mark Twain, Jack London, Zane Gray, Dashiell Hammett, Sinclair Lewis, and Bret Harte.

TURNING TOWARD SERVICE

In 1929, a man from Iowa with another vision for the magazine purchased it. Lawrence W. Lane, a former advertising executive with Better Homes and Gardens, had a simple idea that proved ingenious: he would turn Sunset into a service magazine, giving new and prosperous Westerners information about the best in Western living.

When Lane took over the magazine, the population of the West was booming. A few years later, the end of World War II brought an explosion of newcomers. Drawing on his experience from the East Coast-serving Better Homes and Gardens, he guessed correctly that these new Westerners would be hungry for information about how to travel, cook, cultivate, and build in their new environment. The basic format for Sunset Magazine was born and circulation began to grow.

Lane Publishing sold Sunset Magazine and books to Time Warner in 1990, and the company was renamed Sunset Publishing Corporation. Today, circulation stands at nearly 1.5 million.

MANY "FIRSTS"

The list of lifestyle “firsts” at Sunset include: being the first major magazine to zone editorial content to reflect regional differences in climate and travel opportunities. Sunset was also the first large magazine to include nutritional data; an addition motivated by Westerners’ interest in health and fitness. Sunset editors created western climate zones, and later national climate zones, that are held as the “gold standard” of climate zone information.

The history of the magazine is the history of the West. Its pages reflect the development and sophistication of America’s frontier; the tastes, the trends; and the lifestyle innovations. Sunset Magazine has documented and made popular the idea of a ranch house, indoor/outdoor living, cooking with regional ingredients, low water/low maintenance gardening, and Western-style home decor.

Generations of Western newcomers have turned to the magazine to learn how to garden in an unfamiliar climate, cook with new ingredients, and find a vacation destination in a new land. Today people still turn to the magazine for the same reasons: to learn how to make the most of life in the West.