Western – Old Time Radio Westerns

Straight Arrow

The thrilling opening of Straight Arrow will send chills down the spines of any kids who were lucky enough to hear it “live.” The special sound of the arrow shooting toward its target was made by the organist Milton Charles, who used his Hammond B-2 with its whirring speakers to great effect. “A strong bow…

Gene Autry’s Melody Ranch

Gene Autry’s Melody Ranch is a Western variety radio show in the United States. A 15-minute pilot show aired on December 31, 1939. The program ran from January 7, 1940 to August 1, 1943, and from September 23, 1945 to May 16, 1956. The show’s entire run was broadcast over the CBS radio network, sponsored…

Dr. Sixgun

Dr. Ray Matson, (Karl Weber) is a frontier physician based in a small western town in the 1870s called Frenchman’s Ford. The stories are told by a recurring character named Pablo (Bill Griffis), a gypsy peddler who has a talking raven named Midnight as his sidekick. As his name implied, Matson was equally at home…

Tales of the Texas Rangers

Tales of the Texas Rangers, a western adventure old-time radio drama, premiered on July 8, 1950, on the US NBC radio network and remained on the air through September 14, 1952. Movie star Joel McCrea starred as Texas Ranger Jayce Pearson, who used the latest scientific techniques to identify the criminals and his faithful horse,…

Have Gun Will Travel

Have Gun Will Travel was a popular American Western television series that aired on CBS from 1957 through 1963. It was the #4 show in the Nielsen ratings in its first year, and #3 for the next three years. It was one of the few television shows to spawn a successful radio version. The radio series…

Hopalong Cassidy

Hopalong Cassidy A western that was greater than The Roy Rogers Show or Gene Autry’s Melody Ranch. Hoppy was a hero to one and all. He and his sidekick, California Carlson, roamed the Southwest in thrilling stories week after week. Almost every tale had a little mystery in it, and almost every story ended with…

Lightning Jim

The program originated in the 1940s and was called The Adventures of Lightning Jim. It was a West Coast program. The program returned as a syndicated series in the 1950s. Lightning Jim is the story of U.S. Marshal Lightning Jim Whipple, his horse Thunder, and his deputy, Whitey Larson. The shows portray Native Americans, the…

Grand Ole Opry

The Grand Ole Opry is a weekly country music stage concert in Nashville, Tennessee, that has presented the biggest stars of that genre since 1925. It is also among the longest-running broadcasts in history since its beginnings as a one-hour radio “barn dance” on WSM-AM. Dedicated to honoring country music and its history, the Opry…

Frontier Gentleman

“Herewith an Englishman’s account of life and death in the West. As a reporter for the London Times, he writes his colorful and unusual accounts. But as a man with a gun, he lives and becomes a part of the violent years in the new territories.” Frontier Gentleman is different from other radio westerns in…

Fort Laramie

When Norman Macdonnell created FORT LARAMIE in late 1955, he made it clear to his writers that historical accuracy was essential to the integrity of the series. Correct geographic names, authentic Indian practices, military terminology, and utilizing actual names of the original buildings of the real fort, was insisted upon. So when the radio characters…

Horizons West

Horizons West was a fascinating, thirteen-installment docudrama which traced the movements of the famous Lewis and Clark expedition from 1803 to 1806. President Thomas Jefferson’s charter to Captains Meriwether Lewis and William Clark was to trace the origination point of the Missouri River, from St. Louis, Missouri to the Great Falls of Montana–and eventually beyond….

Challenge of the Yukon

Challenge of the Yukon was a long-running radio series that began on Detroit’s station WXYZ (as had The Lone Ranger and The Green Hornet), and an example of a Northern genre story. The series was first heard on February 3, 1938. The program was an adventure series about Sergeant William Preston of the Northwest Mounted…

The Cisco Kid

The Cisco Kid was a popular film, radio, television and comic book series based on the fictional Western character created by O. Henry in his short story, “The Caballero’s Way,” published in 1907 in the collection Heart of the West. Films and television depicted the Cisco Kid as a heroic Mexican caballero, although in O….

The Lone Ranger

The Lone Ranger is an American radio and television show created by George W. Trendle and developed by writer Fran Striker. The eponymous character is a masked Texas Ranger in the American Old West, originally played by Paul Halliwell, who gallops about righting injustices with the aid of his clever, laconic Indian sidekick, Tonto. Departing…

Gunsmoke

Gunsmoke was a long-running old-time radio and television Western drama program set in Dodge City, Kansas during the settlement of the American West. The radio show first aired on April 26, 1952, and ran until June 18, 1961, on the CBS radio network. The series starred William Conrad as Marshal Matt Dillon, Howard McNear as…

Western Stories

Not all westerns were done as full series. This is a collection of Western Stories from different shows that did not focus strictly on westerns but had episodes that were westerns or during the western era. We also include shows that have less than 10 episodes either found or that were ever produced.

Show Categories: Western