Welcome to Down These Mean Streets, bringing you the best of detectives from the Golden Age of radio. This week on down these mean streets were headed west for a story of 20th century frontier justice on

tales of the Texas Rangers. The series was in the vein of Dragnet in that it

dramatized cases taken from the files of the actual Texas Rangers,

but its Western setting helped to set it apart from the crowd.

Like Dragnet, tales of the Texas Rangers had a law enforcement technical advisor.

Retired Ranger Captain Manuel T. Lone Wolf Gonzalez.

He famously claimed to have killed 31 men during his 30-year career with the Rangers.

The series starred Joel McCray as Ranger Jace Pearson.

McCrae started at Hollywood as a stand-in for Rudolph Valentino, and his credits include Alfred

Hitchcock's Foreign Correspondent and Sullivan's Travels.

Later in his career, McCra turned his attention to Western's.

As he recalled in 1978, I always felt so much more comfortable in the Western.

The minute I got a horse and a hat and a pair of boots on I felt easier I didn't feel like I was an actor

anymore I felt like I was the guy out there doing it the series aired on NBC

radio from July 8th 1950 until September 14th, 1952.

A television series was launched in 1955,

although McCray didn't appear on the TV show.

The producers and writers worked to get their facts and case history is right,

and they worked closely with the Rangers.

All scripts were approved by the Rangers,

and the name of Jays Pearson's horse Charcoal

was taken from the horse of an actual ranger. So now let's listen to Joel McCray in Hanging by a Thread, originally aired on NBC on November 26th, 1950.

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