The Apple collection: Secret Stanford warehouse houses company history

Thirty-five years of Apple memorabilia make up a museum-like collection of company archives that are hidden away in an off-campus Stanford University warehouse.

Stanford’s Apple Collection takes up more than 600 feet of shelf space in a climate-controlled facility at a location kept secret from the public, said the Associated Press, which paid a visit to the archives.

Should you ever be let in — and one can only dream at this point — you would find a company video of co-founders Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs talking about the Apple I computer, the iconic 1984 Super Bowl ad, a video interview of Wozniak recounting the story behind the company’s name, early financial reports, old letters and thousands of Douglas Menuez photographs from his time chronicling Jobs’ stretch at NeXT.

The story, according to the Associated Press report, is that Apple ditched its plans for a corporate museum in 1997, shortly after Jobs’ return as CEO, and instead donated an expansive collection of documents, books, photos, software, videos and early magazine and TV ads to Stanford for preservation.

The archives, part of Stanford’s larger Silicon Valley Archives collection, continue to be replenished by the ongoing donations of former Apple employees, past executives and company fans.