The White Elephant: Tales of the Texas Rangers (July 15, 1950)

“The White Elephant” is an episode of Tales of the Texas Rangers, the old-time radio show, first broadcast July 15, 1950. Listen free on Stupid Potato.

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What happens

A dead man is found in a parked car with Oklahoma license plates on a West Texas road, bearing no identification and with his pockets cleaned out. Ranger Pearson investigates gasoline receipts found in the car and follows a trail of evidence that leads to a hobo who jumped from a freight train after slugging the brakeman, eventually tracking the suspect on foot across the countryside.

West Texas, 1950; a freight train, a parked coupe on a roadside, and the surrounding countryside

Characters: Ranger Pearson, Sheriff Caldwell, Banker, Brakeman, Hobo

Listen for: The clever detective work piecing together clues: the grease sample, fingerprints, gasoline receipts under the sun visor, and the tracking of footprints that reveal the suspect favoring his left leg from a jump off the moving train.

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.