Twenty years ago Atherton Drive almost became Paramont Drive.

A group of developers headed by Mike Atherton had rolled out plans to build the first segment of what is now Atherton Drive to access planned development between Woodward Avenue and a point west of Wellington Avenue where the western boundary of the 298-unit Paseo Villas were to be built.

They wanted the street named Atherton Drive.

While their project was slowed down in project review due to it including the first developer paid for bike paths in Manteca, J.C. Williams Co. out of Modesto was advancing plans for homes west of Airport Way. He wanted the street named after his housing brand — Paramont.

Given the J.C. Williams’ project was basically tract homes, it jumped ahead and got to the Manteca City Council before the Atherton Homes project did.

Municipal staff did not catch the two competing names. It may have been due to the alignment being  adopted but there were no sections of the street in place yet.

It set up a council showdown between the two developers.

The winner was Atherton because history was on his side.

John Harris, who was a council member at the time, is an immense history buff.

Harris didn’t see the name as a vanity fight between two developers as Williams framed it. Instead he zeroed in on how the surname “Atherton” had a big impact on the lives of many Manteca, San Joaquin County, California, and even United States residents.

That’s because Warren  Atherton, Mike Atherton’s grandfather, was the architect of the G.I. Bill of Rights.

“Grandfather deserves recognition and to be remembered,” Mike Atherton said Tuesday. “He wanted a better solider and he wanted those who served to have a better life.”

Warren Atherton was serving as the newly elected national American Legion commander in 1943 when an estimated 75,000 medically discharged soldiers were returning home each month. Few programs existed to retrain disabled veterans for new careers and no unemployment  pay was offered.

Atherton assembled a blue-ribbon American Legion team to draft an omnibus bill for Congress to consider to assist all veterans, disabled or not, to return to civilian life.

“Even a convict who is discharged from prison is given some money and a suit of clothes. The veteran, when he is discharged from a hospital or separation center, is given neither,” Atherton told Congress in 1943.

Dubbed  the Servicemen’s Readjustment Act of 1944  its 10 key provisions were college education, vocational training, readjustment pay, home and business loans, discharge review, adequate hospitalization, prompt settlement of disability claims, mustering-out pay, employment services and concentration of all these provisions under the Veterans Administration.

The G.I. Bill of Rights was signed into law on June 22, 1944 by President Franklin D. Roosevelt.

The impact of the effort spearheaded by Atherton was significant for World War veterans.

*College enrollment nationwide ballooned from 1.6 million to 2.1 million between 1945 and 1946.

* By 1947, half of America’s college students were military veterans using their GI Bill benefits.

*The G.I. Bill would ultimately send approximately 8 million World War II veterans to college and vocational training programs.

*Thirty percent of World War II veterans used their G.I. Bill benefits to buy homes, farms and businesses.

*The estimated return on federal investment was $7 for every dollar allocated to World War II veterans through the G.I. Bill.

The G.I. Bill that Atherton launched continues to pay dividends today for those who serve.

Atherton was born in San Francisco on Dec. 28, 1891. Although he had no formal higher education, in 1911 at age 20 he went to work for the Stockton law office of H.R.  Noble.

He served in World War I in France as a captain under General Pershing. When he returned he married Ann Holt, the daughter of Benjamin Hot who founded Caterpillar Inc.

Atherton was admitted to the state bar in 1913. After serving as an attorney he became a city judge in Stockton. He eventually was a consultant to the Secretary of War an envoy to Nelson Rockefeller when he was Coordinator of International Affairs.

Atherton died at age 84 on March 7, 1891. He is buried at the Morris Chapel at the University of the Pacific.

Delta College named its main auditorium in Atherton’s honor.

To contact Dennis Wyatt, email dwyatt@mantecabulletin.com