07-06-2025
Today in history: 1911,H.W. Ross, before starting New Yorker magazine, is editor of the Marysville Appeal
On June 7, 1911, the name H.W. Ross appeared for just the second day in a row of a short stint as managing editor of the Marysville Appeal.
Not only was one of the youngest editors of the Marysville Appeal. He was one of the most famous privates of World War I. And he created one of the world's most enduring magazines after convincing a poker buddy, whose family made a fortune in yeast, that it would be a good investment.
Harold Ross, or H.W. Ross as he was known in his one and only byline story in Marysville, was the founder and first editor of The New Yorker magazine, a weekly periodical published continuously since 1925, and considered one of the top political and literary magazines in the world. Even today, it remains one of the rare magazines that earns more from subscriptions than advertising.
A native of Aspen, Colorado, who left home at an early age, Harold Ross, then 18, convinced 62-year-old Marysville Appeal editor John H. Miller, to hire him in early 1911.
Although Ross would later work for newspapers in San Francisco, Sacramento, Santa Rosa, Pasadena, Panama, New Orleans, Atlanta, Brooklyn, and Hoboken, New Jersey, one of his most significant assignments turned out to be his first, at the Marysville Appeal, according to Thomas Kunkel, author of "Genius in Disguise: Harold Ross of The New Yorker."
In his biography of Ross, Kunkel begins chapter 2, entitled "Tramp"—Ross was among the last of the tramp journalists who roamed from newspaper to newspaper and whose numbers included Mark Twain and Bret Harte—with this story:
"On a clear Sunday morning in March 1911, some three dozen anxious people crowded onto a smallish gasoline-powered freighter, the Sioux, which was docked on the Feather River in tiny Nicolaus, California, just north of Sacramento. The short trip they were about to make, upriver to Marysville, would take only a few hours, but there was a great deal more at stake than a diverting excursion. The passengers were rivermen, engineers, business leaders, the merely curious, and a handful of newspaper reporters. Representing the Marysville Appeal was H.W. Ross, as his byline had it, a gangly, gawky man-child of eighteen.
"Marysville had a problem: it was a river town whose river had silted up, useless, from years of unrestrained hydraulic mining. This had the effect of marooning Marysville from Sacramento (and therefore San Francisco), and put its future directly into the unwelcome hands of the railroads. With the mining finally shut down, there was new cause to think the Feather might again accommodate big steamers, but it all depended on whether the Sioux—which, though small, had a deep draft—could make it all the way upriver without getting stuck. As Ross summed it up in the Appeal two days later, 'The renavigating of the Feather is one of the most important moves in the history of Marysville—probably the most important…When boats are again running shippers will not be at the mercy of the railroads.' And beyond the obvious business ramifications, Ross reminded his readers, there were 'unbounded' social possibilities: 'The excursion of the future will not be made in a small launch with a dozen or so passengers, nor in a fifty-or sixty-foot pleasure craft—but it will be possible for excursion boats carrying hundreds of passengers to ply between this city and Sacramento—yes, even to {San Francisco] bay.'
"The news that day, as duly reported by H.W. Ross, was good: the Sioux had been unimpeded. The Appeal signaled the importance of the story not only in big headlines and top-of-the-page treatment, but by attaching Ross's byline to it. At this time in American journalism, a byline—the writer's name at the beginning of a story—was rare, for the most part reserved for articles of real significance or distinction. This is just one of the reasons it is difficult to follow the zigzag, vaporous trajectory of Ross's newspaper career."
Miller took a strong liking to his young reporter, and taught him the newspaper arts.
"…Ross, for his part, was a quick study. He had to be, merely to survive the grueling regimen. The Appeal published six days a week, eight pages a day. Since it specialized in local news (said one headline: 'Beggars Have Come To Town') and competed with the evening paper for readers, exhausting hours were required to report and write enough material to mill that maw.
"Five weeks after Ross wrote that story, Miller took ill. He was hospitalized in Sacramento but died on May 31. Out of respect (if not out of printer's inertia), Miller's name remained on the newspaper's masthead until June 3. Then, on June 6, it is replaced with this: 'H.W. Ross, Editor.' Still learning the finer points of eluding railroad Pinkertons and scarcely old enough to shave, Ross suddenly found himself in charge of a daily newspaper. Almost certainly he gave himself the battlefield promotion, but he had little choice: when Miller died, the Appeal's owner, Colonel E.A. Forbes, adjutant general of the state of California, was traveling on military business. At the time it all must have been a little terrifying, but two decades later Ross recalled the episode with the newspaperman's sangfroid: 'Someone had to edit the paper. The only part I couldn't do was write the editorials—we got a man for that and I did the rest.'"
Two months later, Ross's name disappeared from the mast without explanation.
Whether he was fired or just moved on, we'll never know.
In 1917, Ross was in the military as World War I erupted. His newspaper skills landed him a position with a brand new adventure: the military wanted a publication that spoke to the soldiers. During his time as as a contributor, and ultimately an editor of the brand new Stars and Stripes newspaper, Ross passed up every opportunity for a promotion and met several of the writers, including his first wife, who would later be critical to the successful launch of The New Yorker. He was praised by the military brass and President Wilson for his contributions.
In New York, he launched a magazine called Home Front modeled on Stars and Stripes, and was editor of two other magazines, before he convinced Raoul Flesichman, whose family had gotten reach selling yeast, to go in with him on creating a new magazine focuses on life in New York, in 1925. The magazine struggled, but survived, during the Depression, but it came of age during and after World War II. The magazine is known for its cartoonish covers and brilliant writing and editing, a tradition started by a man who cut his teeth writing about, and editing stories about, activities on, and around, the Feather River.
