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Western drama · CBS

Fort Laramie

July 25, 1955 – October 28, 1956 · 41 broadcasts

Fort Laramie was one of the last and finest of radio's "adult Westerns." Produced and directed by Norman Macdonnell -- the man behind Gunsmoke -- it ran a single season on CBS in 1956, forty Sunday-afternoon broadcasts plus a 1955 audition, and drew its writers, sound men, and supporting company straight from Gunsmoke. Raymond Burr starred as Captain Lee Quince, a cavalry officer at the Wyoming frontier post, in his last leading role on network radio before Perry Mason made him a television star. Around him stood the great CBS Hollywood repertory: Vic Perrin as Sergeant Gorse, Harry Bartell as Lieutenant Siebert, Jack Moyles as Major Daggett. Kathleen Hite -- the first woman on the CBS writing staff -- scripted the lion's share, and Amerigo Marino's music rode the strains of "Garry Owen." Unsentimental and historically careful, the series found its drama in weather, boredom, disease, and hard choices as often as in gunfire.

Collection status: 41 of 41 held (100% complete)
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Episode Spine

Grouped by year. Jump to the full list below, or open a season on its own page.

1955

July 25, 1955 Audition Show Listen (MP3)
The 1955 series try-out, with John Dehner as Captain Quince in the story later remade for the regular run as "The Boatwright's Story."

1956

January 22, 1956 Playing Indian Listen (MP3)
White outlaws slaughter a homestead family and dress the killings up as an Arapaho raid, so Quince sets a trap to expose the horse thieves behind it.
January 29, 1956 The Boatwright's Story Listen (MP3)
Quince rides to the reservation and presses an old ally, Chief Wild Dog, to name the white gunrunner supplying Yellow Knife with repeating rifles.
February 5, 1956 Squaw Man Listen (MP3)
With the Arapaho starving off the reservation after broken government promises, a squaw man warns Quince they may strike a wagon train bound for Silver Springs.
February 12, 1956 The Woman at Horse Creek Listen (MP3)
A newly widowed homesteader refuses to abandon her husband's prairie grave, though the cavalry knows a woman alone out there is easy prey.
February 19, 1956 Boredom Listen (MP3)
Bored stiff by garrison routine, Private Soothey cooks up a plan to stir up the Cheyenne -- and gets more trouble than he bargained for.
February 26, 1956 Captain's Widow Listen (MP3)
The widow of an officer killed by the Cheyenne years before comes west to reclaim his body and nearly ignites a fresh Indian war.
March 4, 1956 Shavetail Listen (MP3)
Back late and short both men and horses after an ambush, young Lieutenant Seiberts is drawn into a battle of wits with the raider Squaw Dog.
March 11, 1956 Hattie Pelfrey Listen (MP3)
Wounded and pursued by the Arapaho, Quince takes shelter with a cantankerous old woman, Hattie Pelfrey, who once saved his life.
March 18, 1956 The Beasley Girls Listen (MP3)
Quince gambles on swapping a captured Sioux chief to free two white women seized in a wagon-train massacre, and nearly pulls it off.
March 25, 1956 The Coward Listen (MP3)
Lieutenant Wendt arrives at Fort Laramie under an unjust charge of cowardice and has to live it down.
April 1, 1956 Lost Child Listen (MP3)
The uncompromising Major Barlow, who would handle the Indians as harshly as Custer, brings his hard line to the post.
April 15, 1956 Stage Coach Stop Listen (MP3)
During the fort's ball a stranded mother and her giggling daughter arrive by crippled stagecoach, just as the prisoner Yellow Horse threatens to break out of the stockade.
April 22, 1956 The New Recruit Listen (MP3)
A drifter who once wore the uniform but was never really a soldier signs up again for a peculiar reason, unsettling a veteran sergeant enough to request a transfer.
April 29, 1956 Capture Listen (MP3)
A dying Red Horse asks for his son, but the young brave Snowfoot will not be brought in to live on the reservation.
May 6, 1956 Never the Twain Listen (MP3)
On patrol, Lieutenant Seiberts saves a snakebitten Indian girl -- Spotted Tail's daughter -- and confronts how far apart the two worlds still stand.
May 13, 1956 War Correspondents Listen (MP3)
A New York newspaperman comes west set on reporting the "truth" about the frontier and seeing the "real" West for himself.
May 20, 1956 Gold Listen (MP3)
Gold-seekers push along the Bozeman Trail deep into tribal land, trampling the treaty as they go. (Also logged as "Black Hills Gold.")
May 27, 1956 Sergeant's Baby Listen (MP3)
With the post in his hands, Quince finds himself midwife to Stella Merchant's early baby, Sergeant Gorse pressed into service alongside him.
June 3, 1956 Don't Kick My Horse Listen (MP3)
A trooper's stubborn devotion to his old, lame horse puts the whole troop in danger when the Indians attack.
June 10, 1956 Young Trooper Listen (MP3)
A boy named Jed survives the massacre at a sabotaged train wreck and later takes up the uniform himself.
June 17, 1956 Winter Soldier Listen (MP3)
A soldier turns "snowbird," deserting the post once the spring thaw sets in.
June 24, 1956 The Loving Cup Listen (MP3)
Quince devises an odd scheme to steady the diffident young Lieutenant Seiberts into a real officer.
July 1, 1956 Trooper's Widow Listen (MP3)
A trooper's new bride -- a schoolteacher convinced that books matter more than guns -- learns the frontier's hard lessons firsthand.
July 8, 1956 Talented Recruits Listen (MP3)
A medicine-show hawker and a Shakespearean actor enlist to keep from starving, and find out what soldiering really costs.
July 15, 1956 Old Enemy Listen (MP3)
A trooper named Patchen, a figure out of Quince's past, joins the troop and brings his old trouble with him.
July 22, 1956 Spotted Tail's Return Listen (MP3)
Spotted Tail -- the Sioux chief who signed away his people's land for peace -- prepares at last to leave the reservation behind.
July 29, 1956 Nature Boy Listen (MP3)
Quince is ordered to escort the eccentric Quirings -- bird-watchers Horace and Winifred -- across dangerous country.
August 5, 1956 The Massacre Listen (MP3)
A fanatical army major turns his guns on the peaceable Shoshone.
August 12, 1956 The Assembly Line Listen (MP3)
Indian agent Jim Lack braces for an uprising, and he has a very good reason to expect one.
August 19, 1956 Goodbye Willa Listen (MP3)
Quince finally works up the nerve to propose to Miss Willa.
August 26, 1956 The Chaplain Listen (MP3)
Fifty-nine men are laid low by scurvy with no fresh food to be had for miles, and the post's chaplain must find an answer.
September 2, 1956 The Return of Hattie Pelfrey Listen (MP3)
The irascible old Hattie Pelfrey, feeling poorly, turns up at Fort Laramie to visit the man she calls her son -- Captain Quince.
September 9, 1956 The Buffalo Hunters Listen (MP3)
Quince crosses paths with Jake Cuppy, a buffalo hunter, in a tale that spares no detail of the skinning trade.
September 16, 1956 The Payroll Listen (MP3)
The paymaster is four months overdue, and trouble rides in with him when he finally arrives.
September 23, 1956 The Woman at Horse Creek Listen (MP3)
The widowed Mrs. Dennis clings to her prairie homestead while the garrison takes up a collection to send her home. (A repeat of the February 12 broadcast.)
September 30, 1956 A Small Beginning Listen (MP3)
Sent into the Black Hills to bring Sitting Bull to a parley, Quince discovers a white man is stirring up the Sioux.
October 7, 1956 Galvanized Yankee Listen (MP3)
An unrepentant ex-Confederate -- taken prisoner in his grey and shipped west in a blue Union uniform -- carries his open hatred of Yankees into Company B.
October 14, 1956 Still Waters Listen (MP3)
Mrs. Feemster and her "Committee on Moral Improvement" descend on the fort and get the beer abolished.
October 21, 1956 Indian Scout Listen (MP3)
Charlie, a horse-thieving Crow scout still carrying four slugs in one leg, throws in with the troop.
October 28, 1956 Army Wife Listen (MP3)
Widowed after thirty years of following the flag, Major Hale's wife Jessie stays on at the post to steady a young newlywed, Mrs. Winton.
The Story

Fort Laramie was one of the last and finest of radio's "adult Westerns." Produced and directed by Norman Macdonnell -- the man behind Gunsmoke -- it ran a single season on CBS in 1956, forty Sunday-afternoon broadcasts plus a 1955 audition, and drew its writers, sound men, and supporting company straight from Gunsmoke. Raymond Burr starred as Captain Lee Quince, a cavalry officer at the Wyoming frontier post, in his last leading role on network radio before Perry Mason made him a television star. Around him stood the great CBS Hollywood repertory: Vic Perrin as Sergeant Gorse, Harry Bartell as Lieutenant Siebert, Jack Moyles as Major Daggett. Kathleen Hite -- the first woman on the CBS writing staff -- scripted the lion's share, and Amerigo Marino's music rode the strains of "Garry Owen." Unsentimental and historically careful, the series found its drama in weather, boredom, disease, and hard choices as often as in gunfire.

Full story — coming soon while it's being curated.
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