The Correspondent: Gunsmoke (November 23, 1958)

“The Correspondent” is an episode of Gunsmoke, the old-time radio show, first broadcast November 23, 1958. Listen free on Stupid Potato.

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What happens

A newspaper correspondent from St. Louis arrives in Dodge City seeking to write a story about a recent stagecoach robbery. Marshal Dillon, skeptical of the correspondent's motives and tired of exaggerated Western tales in Eastern publications, refuses to cooperate. When a report comes in of suspicious activity at an abandoned cabin, the marshal investigates, only to have the persistent correspondent follow him into potential danger.

Dodge City and the surrounding Kansas prairie, including an abandoned cabin

Characters: Marshal Matt Dillon, Reed Norton, Chester, Kitty, Doc, Joe Porter

Listen for: The tension between the marshal's no-nonsense approach to law enforcement and the correspondent's desire for a dramatic story; discussion of a stagecoach holdup and a day-old trail compromised by prairie winds; reports of strange activity at the Hutchinson cabin.

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.