Lost Rifle: Gunsmoke (July 29, 1956)

“Lost Rifle” is an episode of Gunsmoke, the old-time radio show, first broadcast July 29, 1956. Listen free on Stupid Potato.

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What happens

A fisherman named Frank Parrish is shot dead on the riverbank. Marshal Dillon finds a young boy hiding nearby, but the boy claims he only discovered the body and saw no one. Suspicion falls on Ben Temple, a hot-tempered man who had recently quarreled with Parrish, but the evidence troubles Dillon—Parrish was shot in the back, and Temple insists he would never do such a thing.

Dodge City and the surrounding territory, including the riverbank where a murder occurs.

Characters: Matt Dillon, Ben Temple, Paris (or Parrish), Chester, Justin, Andy, Frank Parrish

Listen for: A tense murder investigation that challenges assumptions about guilt and innocence, with Marshal Dillon caught between public suspicion and his own knowledge of a suspect's character.

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.