Sunday Supplement: Gunsmoke (June 24, 1956)

“Sunday Supplement” is an episode of Gunsmoke, the old-time radio show, first broadcast June 24, 1956. Listen free on Stupid Potato.

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What happens

Two dapper writers from New York arrive in Dodge City by stagecoach, hoping to write sensational stories about frontier violence for Eastern newspapers. When Marshal Dillon encounters a wounded cavalry patrol led by Lieutenant Faine, he learns that Little Hawk, a peaceful Pawnee chief, has jumped the reservation with forty braves and is attacking settlers and soldiers. Dillon investigates a Pawnee burial ground where bodies have been removed from their burial platforms, suggesting Little Hawk may be retrieving his dead for some unknown purpose.

Dodge City, Kansas and the surrounding frontier territory, including Fort Dodge and a Pawnee burial ground near Grover trees.

Characters: Matt Dillon, Kitty, Doc Adams, Ned Spring, Bunker, Lieutenant Faine, Little Hawk

Listen for: The contrast between the New York writers seeking sensational stories and the harsh reality of frontier violence; the mystery of why peaceful chief Little Hawk has broken out and is collecting his dead from the burial platforms.

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.