Wild West – June 2019

STYLE
PUBLICATIONS
Sunset Unlimited
In 1898 the Southern
Pacific Transporta-
tion Co. launched
Sunset [sunset.com]
as a promotional
magazine to combat
negative Wild West
stereotypes about
California. Distributed
at stations and aboard
Southern Pacific’s
Sunset Limited train,
it was designed to lure
tourists west to the
railroad’s Hotel Del
Monte in Monterey,
then encourage them
to stay and buy land.
Understandable,
given that Southern
Pacific was the largest
single landowner in
both California and
Nevada. The inau-
gural issue featured
photos of Yosemite by
noted geologist Joseph
LeConte and covered
aspects of train travel,
including poetry with
railroad themes and a
string of short stories
in which characters
swapped tall tales,
always aboard a train.
Most of the early sto-
ries were penned by
Paul Shoup, who later
abandoned fiction to
become president of
the Southern Pacific.
In 1912 Southern
Pacific purchased
Portland-based Pacific
Monthly, merging it
with Sunset. Among
the oldest continu-
ously published maga-
zines in the world,
Sunset now boasts
a circulation of
more than 1 million.

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