The The Western genre was forever changed on April 26th, 1952, when listeners first arrived in

Dodge City and met U.S. Marshal Matt Dylan.

Dylan's fight to bring peace to one of the West's toughest towns gave radio one of its finest

dramas in gun smoke.

The series ran for nearly 10 years on radio and it inspired dozens of radio shows, television programs, and movies.

Before Gunsmoke, Westerns on radio and the big screen were largely kitty fair, simple good

versus evil stories about the Lone Ranger, the Cisco Kid, and Hop Along Cassidy. This was years before high noon or 3-10 to Yuma, when writers proved that mature stories could be told in the genre.

But none of those great works might have followed if CBS hadn't paved the way with what began as a hard-boiled drama set on the frontier instead of the dark streets of a big city.

In 1949, CBS President William Paley, a huge

fan of the network's Philip Marlow radio series, approached his director of

programming Harry Ackerman with a request.

Paley wanted a new show, a Western that would focus on a Marlow of the West,

two audition programs for this series, to be titled Gunsmoke, were recorded

in the summer of 1949. Following Paley's directive for a Philip Marlow of the West, the audition script was a

reworking of a Michael Shane radio adventure from writers Morton Fine and David

Friedkin. In the program, U.S. Marshal Mark Dylan was dispatched to the town of Gaoji to investigate a crooked

casino.

The first recording starred Michael Rye as Dylan and it plays very much like a detective show

with the Marshall essentially hired by a client who knows of Dylan's tough reputation.

The second audition start Howard Culver, who we've heard on the podcast as Ellery Queen.

The Culver recording was preferred among the two, but a complication arose with the leading man. At the time, Culver was starring in the Western Adventure

Straight Arrow, and his contract prohibited him from taking the job in that series or any other

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