Grass: Gunsmoke (August 25, 1957)

“Grass” is an episode of Gunsmoke, the old-time radio show, first broadcast August 25, 1957. Listen free on Stupid Potato.

Listen to Gunsmoke free, live around the clock: every episode, in the order it first aired. No sign-up.

What happens

Harry Pope, a nervous newcomer from Boston, has built a small homestead on the prairie and claims to be hearing Indians scratching around at night. When two men riding past his property fire shots into his hut, Pope shoots back in self-defense, killing Joe Carter, a ranch hand who worked for the wealthy cattleman Ned Honeyman. Marshall Dillon investigates the shooting and discovers that Pope may have killed Carter by mistake, thinking he was defending himself against the Indians he fears.

Dodge City and the Kansas prairie, circa 1957

Characters: Matt Dillon, U.S. Marshall, Harry Pope, homesteader, Kitty, Chester, Doc Adams, Ned Honeyman, cattleman, Joe Carter, ranch hand, Earl Brandt, ranch hand

Listen for: The mystery of why Honeyman's men were shooting at Pope's homestead and whether Pope's fears of Indians are real or imagined.

Written from the episode itself; it never gives away the ending. Every recording is remastered for the stream: cleaned of rumble, hiss and mains hum (and the old TV whine where we found it), then levelled in two passes to steady broadcast loudness, so one show is never quieter than the next.