Don Bolles, slain Arizona Republic reporter, to be honored with street sign at Clarendon

Camryn Sanchez
Arizona Republic
Don Bolles at work as a reporter.

Street signs at two midtown Phoenix intersections will honor Arizona Republic reporter Don Bolles, who was killed by a car bomb outside the Clarendon Hotel 45 years ago this month. 

The Clarendon Hotel's owner reached out to the city and will pay to install and maintain the sign toppers, which will be at the intersections of Fourth and Clarendon avenues and Fourth Avenue and Osborn Road.

The hotel displays a bust of Bolles in its lobby, but owner Daron Brotherton said he wanted to add a more visible representation outside. Brotherton became the hotel owner in 2019 and has been working on this project for about six months. The signs will read: Don Bolles Way.  

Greg Burton, The Republic's executive editor, praised the effort that got unanimous Phoenix City Council support on Wednesday. 

“Don Bolles fearlessly fought the corrupt and the powerful, and paid the ultimate price,” Burton said. “His photo is one of the first things reporters see in our newsroom. But since his investigations were a gift to all of Arizona, it’s appropriate and just to honor him on the streets where he worked for all to see. We hope his name will inspire others to seek the truth.”

Bolles' murder in 1976 sent shock waves across Phoenix and the nation. Prominent figures expressed their horror over the crime, including then-President Gerald Ford.

June 2, 1976: An explosion ends his life

Bolles began working as an investigative journalist for The Republic in 1962 and for years covered high-profile stories about public corruption, organized crime and scandal.

On June 2, 1976, he was lured to the hotel, then called Hotel Clarendon, by a man who promised information involving land fraud and prominent politicians. But it was a ruse. 

When the meeting was canceled, Bolles returned to his car and started to back out of a parking space at the hotel: 401 W. Clarendon Avenue. Dynamite strapped beneath the white Datsun exploded, shaking nearby buildings and, soon after, the community and nation.

Listen:With cassette tapes of Don Bolles' interviews, our podcast tells the story of the murdered journalist using his own voice.

An attack on an American journalist was rare. Bolles would live 11 more days, undergoing three amputations to try to stave off infection. He died June 13, 1976, at the age of 47, leaving behind his wife, Rosalie, and seven children. 

The search for justice would stretch into the 1990s. 

Two men went to prison for the bombing. John Harvey Adamson was convicted of planting the bomb and Max Dunlap was convicted of plotting the crime. A third man, James Robison, was accused of detonating the bomb. He was convicted in his 1970s trial, but acquitted by a jury in his re-trial in the 1990s. He died in California in 2016 at the age of 90.

Adamson was released in 1996 and died in 2002. Dunlap died in prison in 2009. 

The theory was that Dunlap wasn't happy about stories Bolles had published about his mentor Kemper Marley, a wealthy land baron and liquor distributor, that cost him a coveted seat on the Arizona Racing Commission.

Police could never make a case connecting Marley to the bombing.

If Marley didn't order the bombing, it may have been Dunlap, "who was just going to do it and say (to Marley), 'Look what I did for you,'" Jon Sellers, a Phoenix police detective on the case told The Republic in 2009. 

The outrage was particularly strong in the news community.

"It's sharpened our teeth, that's what it's done,” Republic reporter Paul Dean said on June 14, 1976. “They thought they could silence one man, and they have silenced one man, but they can't silence the entire news media." 

Journalists from across the country descended on Phoenix to continue Bolles' investigative work in a series of published stories known as the "Arizona Project."

A reporter working to 'make our city a better and safer place'

Steve Beuerlein, who went to school with one of Bolles' daughters, praised the sign markers and the impact of the gesture on his family.

"His family and his grandchildren will be proud of this recognition that you all have an opportunity to provide for Don Bolles," he told the council this week. 

Beuerlein remembered graduating from eighth grade with Bolles' daughter in 1976.

"It was supposed to be an exciting time, and it ended up being such a sad summer," he said. 

Bolles' life was taken as he worked "to make our city a better and safer place to live," Beuerlein said.

Councilmember Sal DiCiccio offered condolences for all that the family had to endure.

"I mean, you could not imagine that going on in our country. That just doesn’t happen here. It’s not supposed to happen here," he said. 

Councilmember Laura Pastor said, "He sacrificed his life investigating and doing a good deed to get to the truth." 

Reach reporter Camryn Sanchez at camryn.sanchez@azcentral.com. Follow her on Twitter: @CamrynSanchez2.

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