The Edge of the American West recalls that, on this day in 1925, The New Yorker took its first bow on the American literary scene. The real icon, EAW says, is not Eustace Tilley, the mag’s original top-hatted cover boy, but its first editor, Harold Ross, who probably wouldn’t have been caught dead in a top hat:

He came from Colorado and worked as a reporter and photographer in San Francisco and Atlanta. He spent time also in Panama and, maybe most important, edited the Army’s newspaper, Stars and Stripes. Which is by way of saying, he knew the West, the South, the new cities, the new army and the new colonies—the ingredients that, when added to an acquaintance with the capital of capital, New York City, would give you an excellent working understanding of the major ingredients of modern America.

Happy anniversary, Harold Ross.