Hot Horse Hyatt: Gunsmoke (June 8, 1958)

“Hot Horse Hyatt” is an episode of Gunsmoke, the old-time radio show, first broadcast June 8, 1958. Listen free on Stupid Potato.

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What happens

When a lynch mob brings a drifter named Jesse Hyatt to Dodge City for allegedly stealing horses from rancher Del Bragan, Marshal Dillon stops the hanging and takes him into custody. Jesse claims he bought the horses honestly from a traveling dealer in Wichita, but without proof of the sale or the dealer's identity, he faces a difficult trial with the town against him.

Dodge City, Kansas; the town stable and jail

Characters: Matt Dillon, Chester, Doc, Del Bragan, Jesse Hyatt, Tommy Bragan

Listen for: The tense confrontation between Marshal Dillon and the lynch mob in the stable; Jesse Hyatt's account of how he came to possess the disputed horses; young Tommy Bragan's sympathy for the accused man despite his father's anger.

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.