Edwin Atherton

Edwin Newton Atherton (October 12, 1896 – August 31, 1944) served as a foreign service officer, Bureau of Investigation agent, private investigator, and later, appointed head of the college athletics organization, the Pacific Coast Conference in 1940.[1][2]

Edwin Atherton
Born(1896-10-12)October 12, 1896
Washington, D.C., U.S.
DiedAugust 31, 1944(1944-08-31) (aged 47)
Santa Monica, California, U.S.
Resting placeForest Lawn Memorial Park
Glendale, California
Alma materGeorgetown University (1914)
Occupation(s)Consul, FBI Agent
Private investigator
Commissioner,
Pacific Coast Conference
(1940–1944)

Biography

Born in Washington, D.C., the son of Edwin J Atherton and Mary Agnes McCarten. Atherton studied law at Georgetown University (1914) for only four months. After leaving Georgetown, he was a clerk in a bank and then entered the consular service (January 1916) where during World War I he served in Genoa, Italy,[3] followed by Bulgaria, and Jerusalem.[4] After the war, Atherton served in Canada, then resigned from consular duties, March 13, 1925, and served the Department of Justice from 1925 to 1927. He served in New York, Boston, Detroit, Los Angeles and headed the Department of Justice office in San Francisco, California.[5]

His service in the BOI (later FBI) was notable for his having worked on the 1924 capture of a neo-revolutionary army of Mexican nationals under the leadership of General Enrique Estrada at Engineer Springs on the California border. He resigned from the BOI in 1927 and started a private investigating firm in Los Angeles with another former special agent, Joseph Dunn, called Atherton and Dunn.

Atherton's firm was hired to investigate police graft and corruption and wrote the so-called "Atherton Report" on police corruption in the San Francisco Police Department in the late 1930s.[6][7]

He was paid $40,000 to thoroughly investigate the Pacific Coast Conference in 1938.[8][9] After two years and the submission of his extensive two-million-word report,[10] he was immediately appointed to be High Commissioner of the Pacific Coast Conference in January 1940 to carry out his recommended reforms.[1][11]

Personal

He was previously married in 1924 to Elma Catheryne Atherton (née Jackson), who divorced him on grounds of cruelty in October 1941. His son Edwin Jr. was 12 years old at the time.[12][13][14]

After a month-long hospitalization for a gall bladder illness in August 1944, Atherton died at age 47 at Santa Monica Hospital in Santa Monica, California.[2][15]

Atherton was survived by his widow, Anzonetta Atherton, whom he had married in October 1942 in Las Vegas.[16][13] Anzonetta Collison (née Moore), a playwright from Mason City, Iowa was the widow of Wilson Collison.[17]

References
  1. "Coast colleges name Atherton boss". Spokesman-Review. Associated Press. January 6, 1940. p. 10.
  2. "Edwin Atherton, Coast football czar, dies". Berkeley Daily Gazette. United Press. September 1, 1944. p. 11.
  3. "Biographic Register of the Department of State, Volume 1918". United States Department of State. 1919.
  4. "Edwin Atherton". politicalgraveyard.com.
  5. FBI information on Enrique Estrada capture Archived 2016-12-25 at the Wayback Machine
  6. 1937 Atherton Report
  7. Edwin N. Atherton. Berkeley Library, University of California. 1937.
  8. Edwin N. Atherton & Associates, Howard R. Philbrick (1938). "Legislative Investigation". pp. 1–8.
  9. "Faults of P.C.C. are listed". San Jose News. United Press. January 5, 1940. p. 10.
  10. "Atherton Report, $40,000 worth, calls a spade a spade for colleges". Spokesman-Review. Associated Press. January 4, 1940. p. 13.
  11. Edwin N. Atherton at the Pacific Coast Conference (photo). Berkeley Library, University of California. 1940.
  12. "Elma and Edwin Atherton divorce in Montana". 1941.
  13. "Commissioner of Football Dies in South". San Jose News. United Press. September 1, 1944. p. 11.
  14. "Edwin Newton Atherton in the British Columbia, Canada, Marriage Index, 1872-1935". Ancestry.com. British Columbia Vital Statistics Agency. British Columbia, Canada. 31 December 1924.
  15. "Coast czar Atherton dies". Eugene Register-Guard. United Press. September 1, 1944. p. 8.
  16. "Atherton Married". Newspapers.com. The Independent-Record. 17 October 1942. p. 8. Retrieved 2021-03-11.
  17. "Anzonetta Collison married to Athletic Commissioner in West". 1942.


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