Marion F. Bolton Papers, 1950-1984

Title: Marion F. Bolton Papers, 1950-1984

Predominant Dates: 1965-1984

ID: MSS BoltonM

Primary Creator: Bolton, Marion F.

Extent: 1.0 cubic foot box. More info below.

Date Acquired: 00/00/2015

Languages of Materials: English [eng]

The Marion Bolton Papers document Bolton's career at Kerr-McGee, from his start in the early 1950s to his retirement in the late 1970s. Materials primarily concern Kerr McGee's mining actions in New Mexico, and subsequent lawsuits involving Kerr McGee. Early Kerr McGee publications include a uranium prospecting guide, a handbook on mining and milling uranium, and a 1956 staff newsletter. These are accompanied by nine photographs showing Kerr McGee sites and activities. The collection contains seven original safety inspection reports for Kerr McGee mining sites, including Shiprock and Cove, which detail radiation observations and working conditions. Newsclippings are primarily from Southwest newspapers, and include articles related to Kerr McGee's operations and early news articles about Navajo radiation illnesses. Artifacts include a fuel pellet and "feed product" samples encased in acrylic, along with a scintillator used by Bolton in his work.

Lawsuits represented include: Kerr McGee v. Navajo Tribe of Indians (1979), Begay v. Kerr McGee (1979), Stuart Udall v. United States of America (1979), and Johnson v. Kerr McGee (1980). Legal materials include correspondence and complaints, as well affadavits and depositions by Bolton in several of these cases. Due to the presence of medical information within these lawsuits, these files are restricted. All requests for access to this material should be directed to the University Archivist.

Marion Frederick Bolton was born June 21, 1917 in El Reno, Oklahoma. After high school, he enlisted in the U. S. Army in 1941 and served until honorary discharge in 1945. In 1942, he married Alma van Fleet in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. Bolton trained as a mining engineer and in the early 1950s began working with Kerr McGee geologists to find uranium deposits in the American Southwest. Bolton was General Manager at Shiprock and oversaw the company's mining operations and land expansion in the area. Between 1952 and 1963 he was part of management at the Kerr McGee site in Cove, Arizona. In 1960 he became Vice President for the Kerr McGee uranium mill at Grants, New Mexico. In 1973 he was appointed Vice President of Safety and Environmental Services at Kerr McGee. In 1976 he was Vice President of the Kerr McGee Copper Project in Patagonia, Arizona. Bolton's involvement in the nuclear industry carried on within the family; he was the father-in-law of Gilbert Zigler, a nuclear engineer who was a first responder for containing the Three Mile Island incident. Bolton died in New Mexico in 2008.

Kerr McGee was an American energy company founded in 1929 by Robert S. Kerr. Geologist Dean A. McGee joined the company in 1946 and the company was renamed Kerr McGee. The company was a major player in post-war uranium production. In 1952, Kerr McGee Oil Industries purchased the mines of the Navajo Uranium Mining Company, and an ore station and uranium mill at Shiprock, New Mexico. The mines involved one of several deposits of uranium on Navajo land in Apache County, Arizona.

Despite the known health risks of exposure to uranium, Kerr McGee's operations in the area employed Navajo Nation residents as miners and mill operators. The radiation exposure and resulting illnesses were suffered by the workers over decades. Additionally, pollution from these mining operations decimated the surrounding land to such a critically severe extent that significant problems persist to the present day, and Navajo Nation members and miner families continue to experience long-term radiation exposure effects.  In 1979, the Navajo Uranium Radiation Victims Committee began a series of lawsuits against Kerr McGee to seek compensation for the damages done to the community.  The U. S. Congress passed the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act in 1990, which was amended in July of 2000 and again in 2009.

More Extent Information: 1 box; 9 photographs

Statement on Access: Access to legal files is restricted due to the presence of confidential medical information. All requests for access to this material should be directed to the University Archivist. All other materials in this collection are open for research.

Acquisition Note: This collection was donated to the Special Collections and Archives Research Center by Andrea Zigler in 2015 as part of the Gilbert Zigler Papers.

Related Materials: Several large nuclear history collections contain materials on Kerr McGee, uranium mining, indigenous peoples, and human radiation exposure, including the History of Atomic Energy Collection and the Robert Dalton Harris, Jr. Collection of Atomic Age Ephemera. The Robert Dalton Harris, Jr. Collection on Uranium Mining includes stock certificates and reports related to uranium mining companies in the American Southwest. The Nuclear Free America Records includes Series II, which documents the organization's work to create Nuclear Free Zones on the lands of indigenous peoples because of the destruction and disease brought by uranium mining. Other materials on Downwinders and others affected by radiation exposure can be found in the History of Atomic Energy Collection and the Robert Dalton Harris, Jr. Collection of Atomic Age Ephemera, and the Ava Helen and Linus Pauling Papers. The University of New Mexico hosts the Navajo Uranium Miners Oral History and Photography Project and the Compensation for Navajo Uranium Miners Collection which conducted oral histories with Navajo miners.

Preferred Citation: Marion F. Bolton Papers (MSS BoltonM), Oregon State University Special Collections and Archives Research Center, Corvallis, Oregon.

Processing Information:

We acknowledge that materials in SCARC collections and the language that describes them may be harmful.  We are actively working to address our descriptive practices; for more information please see our SCARC Anti-Racist Actions Statement online.

Some materials in this collection use derogatory language to describe ethnic groups. We acknowledge the racism represented by the use of these phrases and the harm they may cause our users. Providing access to these historical materials does not endorse any attitudes or behavior depicted therein.

[Date of acknowledgement: August 2023]

Bolton, Marion F.

Navajo Indians--Economic conditions
Navajo Indians--Social conditions
Navajo Nation, Arizona, New Mexico & Utah.
Radiation--Health aspects.
Radiation carcinogensis
Radiation injuries
Uranium industry--Environmental aspects--Navajo Indian Reservation
Uranium miners -- Health and hygiene
Uranium mines and mining
Uranium mines and mining -- New Mexico

Photographic prints.