John W. Bonner

John W. Bonner was born in County Donegal, Ireland, and emigrated with his family to Pennsylvania as an infant. He worked as a laundry truck driver, lumber worker, copper miner, and railroad laborer before turning to the law, studying through correspondence courses with Golden Gate Law School in San Francisco while working as a cab driver and IRS agent. He passed the bar examination in 1938.

That same year, Bonner was elected district attorney of White Pine County, Nevada, a position he held for eight years. He moved to Las Vegas in 1946, where he built a practice in criminal, labor, and mining law, and in 1948 he was named state Democratic Party chairman. In 1961, President John F. Kennedy appointed him United States Attorney for Nevada, a post from which he retired in 1966.

Bonner also served as an alternate municipal court judge in Las Vegas for 13 years and continued practicing law until 1982, when he retired at the age of 78. Over a legal career spanning more than four decades, he devoted himself to public service in Nevada. He died on December 3, 1991.