Butler County Genealogy Trails Kansas Giles Roberts Atherton Bio

BUTLER COUNTY'S EIGHTY YEARS BIOS

GILES ROBERTS ATHERTON

(transcribed by Sheryl McClure)

Giles Roberts Atherton, vice president of the Citizens State Bank, vice chairman of the State Forestry, Fish and Game Commission, a member of the board of trustees of Alien Memorial Hospital, past president and a member of the Board of Directors of the Chamber of Commerce, was born in Kingston, Pennsylvania, November 1, 1876. He has been a resident of El Dorado since November, 1913, coming here as manager of the Western Distributing Company.

Mr. Atherton has always ranked as one of the most actively constructive and thoroughly capable citizens of El Dorado. He was one of the group of younger business men whose commercial ability and civic leadership were put to the test when the discovery of oil in Butler County in 1915 changed the city of El Dorado, almost overnight, from a quiet country town into a seething, churning city of thousands of excited newcomers. Mr. Atherton, together with scores of other men of ability, prospered by the new prosperity of his community, and also gave of his time and thought to see that El Dorado prospered too.

When the United States entered the World War in 1917, he was one of the first to become active in making Liberty Loan, Red Cross and other drives successful here and elsewhere.

Following the war, he joined with other citizens and helped to make of El Dorado probably the cleanest and most attractive city of its population in the entire Mid-West. He expanded into various channels and became a decided influence in the life of the community. His interests not only are wide, but of outstanding prominence. In business, besides being a heavy tax-payer upon realty and personal properties, he is vice president of the Citizens State Bank and active in its management. He also was one of the founders and is now a director of the $5,000,000 Mid-Continent Building and Loan Association. He was a member of the board of directors of the former St. Luke's Hospital; is a former member of the Kiwanis Club and was one of the organizers of the El Dorado Amusement Company, which spent thousands of dollars in the purchase and improvement of Forest Park, a recreational center.

And added to all these activities, in which he is most energetically identified, he has found time to be useful in other ways. He became a member of the First Kansas Forestry, Fish and Game Commission, serving on that board from 1925 to 1929. He also is a national director of the Izaak Walton League of America and for the last fifteen years has been associated with the local state and national trap shooting organizations, attending meets at Pinehurst, North Carolina, and in other cities. He is a charter member of the El Dorado Country Club and a member of the Wichita Club, also a social organization. Fraternally, he is a K. C. C. H. in the Wichita Consistory, with memberships in the York Rite lodge and the Midian Shrine at Wichita, and with El Dorado Lodge of Elks. He is high in the councils of the Republican party of Kansas. While a communicant of no church, he has been a liberal contributor to religious movements.

Mr. Atherton received his early education in the grade and high schools at Knoxville, Pennsylvania, later taking a commercial course in Warner's Business College, Elmira, New York. After quitting school, except for the period of the Spanish-American War in which he enlisted and served with the 12th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry, he has been connected with oil and gas companies. First, he was with the Crystal City Gas Company, Corning, New York, and in 1905 became identified with the Kansas Natural Gas Company, at Joplin, Missouri. Eight years later, he was transferred to El Dorado as manager of the Western Distributing Company. He resigned as manager of the local concern in 1917 to devote his entire time to private affairs.

Mr. Atherton, is of English descent and is the son of Andrew E. and Laura A. (Dunham) Atherton, the former a native of Lucerne County, Pennsylvania, and the latter of Tioga County, Pennsylvania. His parental grandparents were James and Nacy (Raub) Atherton, both natives of Pennsylvania. On the maternal side, his grandfather was William Dunham, a native of Canada, and Ruby (Mattison) Dunham, born in Pennsylvania. Mr. Atherton was married March 4, 1907, to Miss Sybil D. Koplin, of Joplin, Missouri. Mrs. Atherton is the daughter of Aaron Koplin and Jane A. (Dickason) Koplin, the former a native of Ohio and a Civil War Veteran, serving in Company F. 23rd Regiment, Ohio Volunteers. Presidents William McKinley and Rutherford B. Hayes were members of this regiment. Aaron Koplin was born June 30, 1838 and died in 1917. The mother, Jane A. (Dickason) Koplin, was born in Ohio, April 4, 1845 and died December 23, 1923. Mrs. Atherton is a member of Mary Vance Tent Number Fifteen, Daughters of Union Veterans.