Luke Slaughter of Tombstone
February 18, 1958 – June 15, 1958 · 17 broadcasts
"Slaughter's my name, Luke Slaughter. Cattle's my business. It's a tough business, it's a big business..." So began one of the last and leanest of radio's adult Westerns -- a hard-bitten CBS series that ran just 16 weeks in the spring of 1958. Sam Buffington starred as Luke Slaughter, a Civil War cavalryman turned cattle rancher carving out a big stake in the post-war Arizona territory around Tombstone and Fort Huachuca, with Junius Matthews riding along as his sidekick, Wichita. Behind the microphone was serious pedigree: the show was directed by William N. Robson -- the CBS craftsman behind Escape, Suspense, and CBS Radio Workshop -- and its scripts were watched over by Gunsmoke's own sound-effects man, Tom Hanley. CBS was experimenting with the grown-up Western that year, slotting Luke Slaughter between Frontier Gentleman and the radio debut of Have Gun, Will Travel. It never caught on the way those did and was gone after 16 broadcasts -- but the complete run survives, a tidy, hard-riding artifact of radio's last Western days.
Episode Spine
1958
"Slaughter's my name, Luke Slaughter. Cattle's my business. It's a tough business, it's a big business..." So began one of the last and leanest of radio's adult Westerns -- a hard-bitten CBS series that ran just 16 weeks in the spring of 1958. Sam Buffington starred as Luke Slaughter, a Civil War cavalryman turned cattle rancher carving out a big stake in the post-war Arizona territory around Tombstone and Fort Huachuca, with Junius Matthews riding along as his sidekick, Wichita. Behind the microphone was serious pedigree: the show was directed by William N. Robson -- the CBS craftsman behind Escape, Suspense, and CBS Radio Workshop -- and its scripts were watched over by Gunsmoke's own sound-effects man, Tom Hanley. CBS was experimenting with the grown-up Western that year, slotting Luke Slaughter between Frontier Gentleman and the radio debut of Have Gun, Will Travel. It never caught on the way those did and was gone after 16 broadcasts -- but the complete run survives, a tidy, hard-riding artifact of radio's last Western days.