In the 1870s, Dodge City, Kansas was located at the end of a very long cattle trail called The Great Western Cattle Trail, The Dodge City trail, or The Old Texas Trail. During the American War Between The States, the Civil War, cattle herds in the State of Texas had grown very large, since the south did not want beef delivered to the north during the conflict. As a result, at the end of the war, a method had to be found to market the animals by driving them north on cattle trails to cities that had access to the railroad. Herd attendants, or cowboys, were hired for the fourteen hundred mile drive, By the time they arrived at the railhead after sleeping in the open, eating miles and miles of dust, being served bad chuck wagon food, and enduring foul cattle smells, they were ready for a rip roaring time, which sometimes led to conflicts with the townspeople and the law officers who were protecting them.
Gunsmoke was an adult western and was the creation of writer, John Meston, and producer-director, Norman Macdonnell. It absolutely took the country by storm. Variety Magazine, called it an amazing presentation, and The New York Times labeled it Something new and entirely exciting in radio. Program stories centered around the cattle town of Dodge City, Kansas in the 1870s. If there ever was a program that accurately depicted the raw violence and danger of the early American west, radio Gunsmoke was it. Listen to the Sparkling Audio Quality in Radio Archives restoration of Gunsmoke, Volume 2.
