Ralph Lloyd Denton

Ralph Lloyd Denton was born September 8, 1925, in Caliente, Nevada, a member of one of the state's pioneering families and the last of four children of Babe Denton and Hazel Baker Denton. After graduating from Lincoln County High School in 1943, he enlisted in the Army Air Corps and served in World War II as a field artillery instructor. He resigned his commission in 1948 to pursue a law degree, attending the Washington College of Law at American University on the GI Bill and graduating in 1951 with a juris doctorate.

Returning to Nevada, Denton began his legal career as a clerk for U.S. District Judge Roger T. Foley, then served as a deputy district attorney in Elko and later as elected district attorney of Esmeralda County. In 1955 he settled in Las Vegas and established a law practice that would span nearly six decades. Alongside his profession he became a major figure in Nevada's Democratic Party - a protege of U.S. Sen. Pat McCarran, chair of John F. Kennedy's 1960 presidential campaign in Nevada, a Clark County commissioner appointed in 1963, and on several occasions Boulder City's interim city attorney, where he authored the city's limited growth ordinance.

Known as 'the liberal conscience of Nevada,' Denton was an outspoken advocate for civil rights and a key figure in the struggle to end segregation at Las Vegas Strip resorts in the 1950s, working with West Las Vegas leaders and taking cases for the American Civil Liberties Union at a time when few Southern Nevada attorneys would. While he represented many ordinary clients, he also counted among his clients Sun publisher Hank Greenspun, entertainer Louis Prima, and resort builders Milton Prell and Bob Stupak. His life is chronicled in the 2001 memoir 'A Liberal Conscience: Ralph Denton, Nevadan.' He practiced law until announcing his semi-retirement in July 2008, and died July 6, 2012, at the age of 86.