Gunsmoke: Old West Stories

Originally Aired: July 12, 1959 Gunsmoke #379, "Friends Payoff," opens with a mysterious boy delivering an urgent message to Marshal Matt Dillon, refusing to show it to anyone else despite Chester's protests. The note leads Matt out of town to a deserted shack where he finds Ab Butler, an old friend, badly wounded from a back-shooting ambush on the trail from Texas. Ab is desperate to stay hidden,...

Originally Aired: July 5, 1959 Gunsmoke #378, "Emma's Departure," centers on Emma Hyde, a lonely prairie farmer's wife desperate for human contact after years of isolation. When Marshal Matt Dillon and Chester stop by her remote farmstead, Emma eagerly welcomes them with pie and coffee, revealing her desperation for conversation and company. Her husband Ben remains emotionally distant, consumed en...

Originally Aired: June 28, 1959 Gunsmoke #377, "Jailbait Janet," Matt Dillon and Chester investigate a brazen train robbery where three masked bandits made off with fifty thousand dollars in gold and left the baggage clerk mortally wounded. The trail leads them to what appears to be a simple homesteading family traveling by covered wagon—Dan Everly, his son Jerry, and daughter Janet. When Matt dis...

Originally Aired: June 21, 1959 Gunsmoke #376, "Carmen," opens with Major Randall confronting Marshal Matt Dillon about two murdered Army soldiers and a stolen government payroll. When Dillon refuses to investigate what he views as an Army matter, the furious Major threatens to impose martial law on Dodge City within the week. The threat ignites tension throughout town, with civilians like the dru...

Originally Aired: June 14, 1959 Gunsmoke #375, "Kitty's Kidnap," Matt Dillon and Chester rescue a man from a lynching on the trail, only to discover their good deed has freed Pete Brass, a notorious outlaw wanted in three states. When Matt finds a Wichita Bank money sack in Brass's belongings, he hauls the unrepentant criminal back to Dodge and locks him up. Brass remains cocky behind bars, warnin...

Originally Aired: June 7, 1959 Gunsmoke #374, "Doc's Indians," finds Doc Adams and Kitty Russell returning from house calls when they're stopped on the trail by armed Cheyenne warriors. The Indians force them to their riverside camp, where Chief Little Wolf reveals his desperate situation: his young son is gravely ill, and after the tribe's medicine man failed to cure him, Little Wolf wants Doc to...

Originally Aired: May 31, 1959 Gunsmoke #373, "The Deserter," finds Matt Dillon investigating a brazen army payroll robbery at Fort Dodge. When Doc Adams treats a wounded young man in army clothing who mysteriously flees his office, Matt suspects he's found his fugitive. Following a trail west out of Dodge with Chester, the marshal discovers the injured deserter collapsed near a creek bed. As they...

Originally Aired: May 24, 1959 Gunsmoke #372, "Wagon Show," presents a dilemma for Marshal Matt Dillon when Bannock's Grand International Circus arrives in Dodge City on a sweltering summer day. While Chester is thrilled by the sight of an elephant performing tricks on the plaza and townspeople eagerly anticipate the show, Matt learns that violence has followed this particular circus from town to...

Originally Aired: May 17, 1959 Gunsmoke #371, "Scared Boy," begins when a violent confrontation erupts in the kitchen of Cora Meadows and her young son Tad. A desperate man bursts into their home seeking refuge, only to be shot down in cold blood by his pursuer. The killer warns both Cora and the boy to forget what they witnessed, threatening that young Tad will get his throat cut if he talks. The...

Originally Aired: May 10, 1959 Gunsmoke #370, "Dowagers Visit," finds Marshal Matt Dillon facing an unusual challenge when Mrs. Junius Chamberlain, widow of a late senator, arrives in Dodge City demanding his help. The formidable dowager is searching for her runaway grandson, Junius Chamberlain III, who has left Yale College to seek adventure out West. When Matt refuses to organize an official sea...

Originally Aired: May 3, 1959 Gunsmoke #369, "Unwanted Deputy," finds Matt Dillon facing an unusual problem when Vince Wiley rides into Dodge City with a hidden agenda. Wiley eagerly offers his services as a deputy, claiming he has a deep interest in law enforcement and exceptional skill with a gun. Though Matt politely declines, Wiley begins inserting himself into disturbances around town anyway,...

Originally Aired: April 26, 1959 Gunsmoke #368, "The Badge," finds Marshal Matt Dillon ambushed on a lonely trail by two outlaws, Rack and Augy. The simple-minded Augy shoots Dillon and becomes obsessed with claiming the marshal's badge for himself, believing it will make people think he's important. However, the cunning Rack has other plans. Rather than killing Dillon, Rack decides to keep the wo...

Originally Aired: April 19, 1959 Gunsmoke #367, "Third Son," presents a tense struggle between a father's protective grip and a young man's desperate need for independence. When Matt Dillon locks up Rob Crandall for being drunk in the streets of Dodge, the young man's father James Josiah Crandall arrives at the jail with a grim mission. Having lost his two older sons to violence, one in the war an...

Originally Aired: April 12, 1959 In Gunsmoke #366, "Chester's Mistake," Chester Proudfoot returns to Dodge City after visiting family, feeling good about his trip until Marshal Matt Dillon reminds him about an important errand he forgot. Chester was supposed to pick up papers in Dalhart on his way back through the panhandle, but all the fun with his relatives made the task slip his mind completely...

Originally Aired: April 5, 1959 Gunsmoke #365, "Trappers Revenge," When young Tom Carl reports hearing strange moaning sounds in the willows by the river, Marshal Matt Dillon reluctantly investigates what seems like a wild goose chase. Instead, he and Doc Adams discover Tug Marsh, a trapper they met months earlier, barely clinging to life with horrifying wounds. The old mountain man has crawled fo...

Originally Aired: March 29, 1959 Gunsmoke #364, "Lauries Suitor," tensions flare in Dodge City when young Laurie Benson finds herself caught between two very different men. Andy Scott, a well-mannered Easterner on a graduation trip from Philadelphia, has been courting Laurie and even discusses marriage with Miss Kitty. But ranch hand Rad Dawson has other ideas. After seeing Andy with Laurie at the...

Originally Aired: March 22, 1959 Gunsmoke #363, "The Trial," presents a compelling case of circumstantial evidence and witness testimony against an unlikely suspect. When Homer Tisdale, a starved-out homesteader, is caught stealing a handful of potatoes from Van Walcott's store, Matt Dillon refuses to jail him for such a desperate act, instead arranging for him to work at the Long Branch. Days lat...

Originally Aired: March 15, 1959 Gunsmoke #362, "Incident at Indian Ford," finds Marshal Matt Dillon and Chester returning from Hayes City when they encounter a small cavalry detachment camped by the river. Led by the inexperienced Lieutenant Dick and seasoned Sergeant Cromwell, the patrol has just ransomed Mary Tabor from the Arapahoe Indians in exchange for a wagon full of trade goods, including...

Originally Aired: March 8, 1959 Gunsmoke #361, "Maw Hawkins," presents a peculiar predicament for Chester Proudfoot when he boards the Hayes City stage back to Dodge. The journey turns dangerous when a nervous young outlaw named Raz Hawkins attempts to rob the coach, forcing Chester and the other passengers to surrender their valuables along with twenty thousand dollars in bank money. The reluctan...

Originally Aired: March 1, 1959 Gunsmoke #360, "Big Tom," presents Matt Dillon with a troubling situation when Doc Adams comes to him with an urgent warning. Big Tom Burr, a lovable drunk who likes to boast about his fighting days in San Francisco, has been goaded into a bare-knuckle match by Joe Brady and Hob Clay. They've brought in a professional fighter from St. Louis named Creel, who apparent...

Originally Aired: February 22, 1959 Gunsmoke #359, "Sarahs Search," Marshal Matt Dillon and Chester come across a stranded woman on the prairie road between Wichita and Dodge City. Sarah Howell's buggy wheel has broken, and she reveals she's traveling alone to find her fiance, Guy Porter, a tall, handsome, tow-headed man who headed west and never returned. Though it's highly unusual and improper f...

Originally Aired: February 15, 1959 In Gunsmoke #358, "Body Snatch," Marshal Matt Dillon hauls in a troublemaker named Joe Red after catching him digging into an Indian burial site looking for valuables. The grave robbing isn't just a criminal offense—it risks provoking a deadly Indian uprising that could endanger the entire territory. When Joe Red injures his leg during the arrest, Doc Adams is n...

Originally Aired: February 8, 1959 Gunsmoke #357, "Groats Grudge," a brooding Southern gentleman named Yancey Groat arrives in Dodge City with deadly preparations on his mind. He visits gunsmith Walt Dow to have an old Confederate pistol restored to firing condition, telling him the gun "missed its chance once" and won't miss again. He orders a cheap Yankee-style army coffin from the storekeeper a...

Originally Aired: February 1, 1959 Gunsmoke #356, "The Bobbsey Twins," introduces Harvey and Merle Finney, a pair of twin drifters who casually murder a westbound settler named Joe after he refuses to share his meager food supplies. When Joe reaches for his rifle in self-defense, the twins gun him down without remorse, then sit down to enjoy his stew while his widow Lavinda flees into the prairie...

Originally Aired: January 25, 1959 Gunsmoke #355, "The Boots," opens with a tense confrontation at the Long Branch Saloon when a young gunman named Hank Fergus humiliates Zeno Smith, forcing him into a showdown that exposes Zeno's paralyzing fear. The once-respected gunman freezes and crawls on the floor while Fergus mocks him, cementing Zeno's reputation as a coward and driving him deeper into th...