Death Valley Days

For the radio program of the same name, see Death Valley Days (radio program).

Death Valley Days
Early logo of Death Valley Days television program
Genre	Anthology/Western
Presented by	Stanley Andrews (1952–1964) Ronald Reagan (1964–1965) Rosemary DeCamp (1965) Robert Taylor (1966–1969) Dale Robertson (1969–1970)
Narrated by	Merle Haggard (1975 rebroadcasts)
Theme music composer	Herbert Taylor
Country of origin	USA
Original language	English
No. of seasons	18
No. of episodes	452
Production
Executive producers	Gene Autry Louis Gray
Producers	Dorrell McGowan Nat Perrin Armand Schaefer Robert Stabler
Cinematography	William Bradford Richard E. Cunha
Editors	Jack Wheeler Anthony Wollner
Running time	25 min.
Production companies	McGowan Productions Flying A Productions Filmaster Productions Madison Productions
Original release
Network	Syndication
Release	March 1, 1952 – April 24, 1970

James Caan, Karyn Kupcinet and Roy Thinnes in episode "Shadow of Violence" (1963)

Death Valley Days is an American radio and television anthology series featuring true stories of the old American West, particularly the Death Valley area. Created in 1930 by Ruth Woodman, the program was broadcast on radio until 1945 and continued from 1952 to 1970 as a syndicated television series, with reruns (updated with new narrations) continuing through August 1, 1975. The radio and television versions combined to make the show "one of the longest-running western programs in broadcast history."

The series was sponsored by the Pacific Coast Borax Company (20 Mule Team Borax, Boraxo) and hosted by Stanley Andrews ("the Old Ranger") (1952–1964), Ronald Reagan (1964–1965), Rosemary DeCamp (1965), Robert Taylor (1966–1969), and Dale Robertson (1969–1970). With the death of Dale Robertson in 2013, all the former Death Valley Days hosts are now deceased. Hosting the series was Reagan's final work as an actor; he was cast in roles in eight episodes.

The television series was conceived by Pacific Coast Borax Company's advertising agency McCann-Erickson through that company's executive Dorothy McCann and Mitchell J. Hamilburg representing Gene Autry's Flying A Productions.

Production

Parts of the series were filmed in Kanab, Utah. Mostly though, it was filmed in Los Angeles, California.

As the series continued on the air, episodes began to focus on nearly any portion of the American West, not just the Death Valley country.

Hosts

Stanley Andrews as "the Old Ranger", first host of Death Valley Days (1953)

Each of the 452 television episodes was introduced by a host. The longest-running was "The Old Ranger", a character played by veteran actor Stanley Andrews.

Following the departure of Andrews, all subsequent hosts appeared under their own names. The first was Ronald Reagan, the former host of CBS's General Electric Theater and future governor of California and U.S. President. Reagan also acted in twenty-one episodes of Death Valley Days, including the 1965 segment "A City Is Born". In that one, he played mining developer Charles Poston, the founder of Arizona. When Reagan entered the race for governor, actress Rosemary DeCamp filled in as the host for a short time. Then the Death Valley Days hosting position went to Reagan's friend and fellow Hollywood actor Robert Taylor. Like Reagan, Taylor appeared as a character in some of the shows, including "The Day All Marriages Were Cancelled" (1966), also based on the career of Charles Poston.

Taylor portrayed Horace Bell in another 1967 episode, "Major Horace Bell." In the story line, Major Bell, an early settler of Los Angeles, defends a man whom he believes has been framed for murder. That same year in the episode "Shanghai Kelly's Birthday Party", Taylor played James Kelly of San Francisco, who shanghaiied sailors onto ships bound to the Far East, with the expectation that none would return to accuse Kelly of a crime.

Taylor played Texas John Slaughter, a role most associated with Tom Tryon, in the 1968 Death Valley Days episode, "A Short Cut through Tombstone." Buck Taylor (no relation) played his deputy, Billy Stiles. Ned Romero was cast as the Geronimo Kid. He played Porter Stockton in the 1967 episode, "Halo for a Badman". In the story line, Stockton, an ex-convict, is hired by Mayor Engley (Roy Barcroft) as the marshal of the former Animas City, near Durango in southwestern Colorado, because local officials believe that Stockton can withstand outlaws that have robbed every gold shipment sent out of town. Some of the miners, however, claim Stockton has not reformed but is still involved with the gangs. He had reformed but was shot to death in the back by a bandit.

When Taylor became gravely ill in 1969, he was succeeded by Dale Robertson, former star of two other western series, Tales of Wells Fargo and The Iron Horse. Production of new episodes ceased in 1970, but singer Merle Haggard provided narration in 1975 for some previously-made episodes.

During the latter years of the series, some new episodes were still being made while older episodes were already in syndication. In some markets, new episodes could even be running in competition with older ones. To make it easier for viewers to distinguish between old and new, some blocks of syndicated "Death Valley Days" episodes were shown under other series names, and with different hosts. This was common practice at the time among syndicated series, because it was easy to re-shoot the hosting portions of an episode without affecting the main content. Alternate series titles and their respective hosts included Frontier Adventure (Dale Robertson), The Pioneers (Will Rogers, Jr.), Trails West (Ray Milland), Western Star Theater (Rory Calhoun), and Call of the West (John Payne). The last title was also often applied to the series' memorable, haunting theme music.

For its first two years, the series was produced by Autry's Flying A Productions; then from 1954 to 1959, it was handled by McGowan Productions, also known for the Sky King series. Filmaster Productions Inc., which produced the first several seasons of Gunsmoke for CBS Television, took over production of the series after 1959. Madison Productions began to produce the series in 1965.

Although Rio Tinto, successor-in-interest to the series' original sponsor, U.S. Borax, still has a financial stake in this show as the copyrights are still held by the United States Borax and Chemical Corporation, the major rights are now held by Element 5 Media, LLC for the broadcast rights and home video rights.

Borax

Under the Death Valley Days title, the program was sponsored by Pacific Coast Borax Company, which during the program's run changed its name to U.S. Borax Company following a merger. Advertisements for the company's best-known products, 20 Mule Team Borax, a laundry additive, Borateem, a laundry detergent, and Boraxo, a powdered hand soap, were often done by the program's host. Death Valley was the scene of much of the company's borax mining operations. The "20-Mule Team Borax" consumer products division of U.S. Borax was eventually bought out by the Dial Corporation, which as of 2014, as a division of the German consumer products concern Henkel, still manufactures and markets them. Rio Tinto Group absorbed the U.S. Borax mining operations in 1968 and now owns the TV series.

Death Valley Days is by far the most successful syndicated television western series, the most successful television western ever in the half-hour format, and one of the longest-running and most successful of all scripted syndicated series. The end of the series, coupled with the concurrent end of Gunsmoke, marked the demise of the traditional Western era in American television; by the middle 1970s, although western elements were still fairly common in modern series, such as Little House on the Prairie, pure western series were a thing of the past.

The stories used in the series were based on actual events. The episode titled "Death Valley Scotty" was based on the record-breaking run of the 1905 Scott Special, chartered by Walter E. Scott, a.k.a. "Death Valley Scotty".

Guest stars

A

• James Adamson (1896-1956) and Felix Nelson (1913-1998) were cast , respectively, as African-American slaves Zack and Zeke, living in Louisville, Kentucky, in the 1953 episode, "Land of the Free." In the story line, the slaves successfully convince their kindly master, Dr. Henry Cabell (Laton Riley Kirk, Sr.), to allow them to head West to find gold, by which they would purchase their freedom. Gail Davis appeared as Dr. Cabell's daughter, Jerrie.
• Claude Akins played the Confederate raider, Caleb Luck, in the 1960 episode, "Splinter Station." In the story line, Luck is sent to destroy the station, owned by Mary Taylor (Jane Russell). The station provided horses for the Union Army. The episode also features John Mitchum as Ox Jameson.
• John Alderson was cast as the rugged trail guide Hugh Glass in the 1966 episode "Hugh Glass Meets the Bear", the story of the trapper mauled by a bear, left for dead, but survived by crawling two hundred miles to safety. Others in the episode wee Carl Reindel as Jim Bridger, Morgan Woodward as trapper Thomas Fitzpatrick, Victor French as Louis Baptiste, and Tris Coffin as Major Andrew Henry.
• Armand Alzamora (1928–2009) played the Mexican–American outlaw Tiburcio Vásquez in the 1957 episode, "The Last Bad Man". The segment focuses on Vasquez's early life of crime, his hatred for the Americans, a prison escape, and his hanging at the age of still thirty-nine.
• Robert Anderson (1920–1996) was cast as General Philip Kearny, with Gregg Barton as Robert F. Stockton in the 1966 episode "The Firebrand". Gerald Mohr and Will Kuluva played the brothers Andrés Pico and Pío Pico, respectively. The episode is set in 1848 with the establishment of California Territory and the tensions between the outgoing Mexican government and the incoming American governor.
• Warner Anderson played John Gaunt, a settler who protected his farm from attacks by vandal ranchers, in the 1959 episode, "The Strangers".
• Keith Andes was cast in the 1965 episode, "Paid in Full", as Rob Hunter, a former Confederate colonel who returns to Texas to visit Kathy McLennan (Aneta Corsaut), the wife of a soldier who had been killed while serving under Hunter in the American Civil War. He discovers that McLennan and her neighboring ranchers have been defrauded by the cattle baron, John Chisum (Michael Constantine), who issued legally unclaimable IOUs when he purchased their stock. Hunter works to recover the money owed to the ranchers.
• Tod Andrews was cast as Captain Lynn Parker in the 1960 episode, "Confederate Yankee". In the story line, he must break up a secret San Francisco ring financing the Confederate States of America. Elaine Devry and Gavin MacLeod appear as the key members of the ring.
• Morris Ankrum appeared as Major Rogers in the 1959 episode, "A Bullet for the Captain". In the story line, Rogers tries to determine who is smuggling weapons to nearby Indians. Ankrum was also cast as a rancher named Phillips in another 1959 segment, "The Talking Wire", the story of the difficulties encountered in establishing the first telephone system in California.
• Anna-Lisa played Huldah Swanson in the 1966 episode "The Hat That Huldah Wore". In the story line, Anna-Lisa played a young Swedish immigrant coming west to meet her intended husband for the first time. The episode centers upon her flowery hat in which she had stored more than $1,300 to help get a start in her new life. Tris Coffin, Carl Reindel, and Dub Taylor also appear in this episode.
• R. G. Armstrong and Jason Evers appeared as Bundage and Dan Hardy, respectively, in the 1965 episode, "Birthright". In the story line, U.S. President Zachary Taylor pushed for a tax on mines in California. Opponents led by Bundage declare "taxation without representation" and secede temporarily from the United States as the independent town of Rough and Ready, California.
• John Astin guest starred as Jesse Martin, a mine operator who finds gold in the middle of a town, in the 1968 episode, "The Gold Mine on Main Street". Gregg Barton and Lita Baron also appeared in this episode.
• Tol Avery appeared five times on the series: as Frank Brenner in "The Resurrection of Deadwood Dick", as Walter Benson in "Doc Holliday's Gold Bars" (both 1966), and in historical roles as Judge Sidney Edgerton of Montana Territory in "Lucia Darling and the Ostrich" and as the mayor of Caldwell, Kansas, in "The Restless Man" (both 1969).
• Richard Avonde (1914-1981) was cast as firefighter Philo Clark in the 1954 episode, "Little Papeete", a reference to a special fire engine purchased by the community of Columbia, California, which had burned in 1853 and again in 1857. In the story line, Clark leads the effort to purchase the engine, but his girlfriend, Sue Pellet (Emily Heath), grows jealous of Philo's devotion to the machine.

B

• Parley Baer, popular character actor formerly a cast member of The Adventures of Ozzie & Harriet, was cast in four Death Valley Days episodes. He portrayed Horace Greeley in the 1965 episode "The Great Turkey War". In the story line, Greeley, namesake of Greeley Colorado, is panning for gold in the Pike's Peak Gold Rush of 1859 and reports as a journalist on the difficult origin of the settlement of Denver, with rampant vandalism and the theft of turkeys. Michael Constantine was cast as Pollack, who works with Greeley to clean up the community.
• Joby Baker was cast as a traveling magician, Dr. William Davis, in the 1967 episode "The Saga of Dr. Davis". In the story line, Davis's wife, Jenny (Judi Meredith), dies after she encourages him to take a young boy, Tad, on his remaining travels across the West.
• Ed Bakey (1925–1988) played the outlaw Sam Bass in the 1967 episode, "The Informer Who Cried." In the story line, Jim Murphy (Scott Thomas) is about to be sentenced when Texas Ranger Captain Peak (Mark Tapscott) offers him freedom if he helps in the capture of Bass. A fellow gang member, Barnes (Steve Sandor), is suspicious when Murphy returns.
• Roy Barcroft, among seven appearances on the series, played the wagon master, Captain Shaw, in the 1958 episode, "Head of the House", the story of the seven Sager orphans. who after the deaths of both parents, head for refuge to the Marcus Whitman mission in Walla Walla, Washington. They are assisted along the way by the famous frontier scout Kit Carson (Morgan Jones) (1928-2012). Harold Daye and Rickie Sorensen played the Sager sons, John and Frank, respectively.
• Ernestine Barrier appeared as the vengeful matriarch, Dona Luisa Ortega, in the 1959 episode, "Perilous Refuge", set at the end of the Mexican–American War. Anthony George, Gregg Palmer, and Gloria Castillo were cast in this episode as Carlos Ortega, John Brewster, and Dolores Ortega, respectively.
• Charles Bateman played a deputy sheriff, Jim Brand, in Washoe County, Nevada, in the 1965 episode "The Wild West's Biggest Train Holdup". In the story line, Brand places a locked chain on a Central Pacific Railroad engine until the company agrees to pay its tax assessment. Roy Barcroft was cast as the aging Sheriff Jackson, with Pat Priest as his daughter, Nora, who is romantically interested in Brand. In 1966, Bateman was cast in another Death Valley Days episode, "The Hero of Apache Pass", as Bernard J. D. Irwin, a United States Army assistant surgeon and an early winner of the Medal of Honor based on daring exploits in an 1861 confrontation with the Apache Chief Cochise in the Arizona Territory. Phillip Pine was cast as Colonel Pitts, and Dick Simmons played Second Lieutenant George Nicholas Bascom.
• John Beck played a young newspaperman, Sandy Peters, in the 1969 episode "Solomon's Glory". In the story line, a formerly successful journalist named Solomon (Willard Sage) has turned to liquor but is being sobered up by his former boss (Tyler McVey), as Solomon's sister arrives in town.
• Don Beddoe in 1954 played the bandit Black Bart, a poetry-writing, debonair former school teacher who turns to stagecoach robbery after his first holdup, a prank, pays handsomely. Wells Fargo & Co. detectives track him down through a laundry mark. He was also pursued by his landlady, Winona Webb (Helen Brown). He spent six years in the penitentiary, never to be heard from again.
• Ralph Bellamy was cast as the minister Daniel Quint in the 1962 episode, "The Vintage Years." In the story line, a young woman whom Quint befriends on a stagecoach ride, Lorna Erickson (Merry Anders), sets him up to be robbed by her paramour, Johnny Meadows (William Bryant).
• Mark Bennett, who had a limited acting career, was cast as the historical Abraham Curry, the "founding father" of Carson City, Nevada, in the 1956 episode, "The Man Who'd Bet on Anything". Helen Bennett (1911-2001), a former Miss Missouri, was cast as Mrs. Curry, who questions her husband's gambling habit.
• James Best, among four appearances on Death Valley Days, was cast as miner "Tiny" Stoker in the 1955 episode, "Million Dollar Wedding". In the story line, Stoker, in a bet with his cohorts, proposes marriage to a presumably plain woman in their community, Aggie Filene (played by Virginia Lee, an actress who lived from 1924 to 2008). Soon, though the couple falls madly in love with each other and go on a world-wide honeymoon tour with proceeds from a gold strike that they had nearly forfeited. And Aggie returns to the mining camp as a beautiful woman.
• Paul Birch played transcontinental telegraph line layer Mike Walsh in "Hang em High".
• Robert Blake, at thirty-three, played Billy the Kid in the 1966 episode, "The Kid from Hell's Kitchen". In the story line, The Kid sets out to avenge the death of his friend John Tunstall (John Anderson).
• John Bleifer, in the 1960 episode, "One Man Tank," played a prospector, Dutch Charley Koehn, who failed at gold mining and instead bought a goat farm, on which he makes a gold strike. John Harmon was cast as Mike Shannon, who tries to evict Charley from the property. Charley's friend, Leo Harris (Dabbs Greer), tries to remedy the injustice Charley faces. Best was cast as Ruel Gridley in the 1962 Death Valley Days episode, "The $275,000 Sack of Flour". In the story line, Gridley pays off a bet by donating a bag of flour to a fund for those wounded in the American Civil War.
• Lloyd Bochner played the author Robert Louis Stevenson in the 1966 episode "Jolly Roger and Wells Fargo", directed by Denver Pyle. Don Reardon (died 2004) played Stevenson in an earlier 1958 episode, "The Great Amulet." In the story line, Stevenson falls in love with Fanny Osbourne, played by Aline Towne, the mother of two children in a loveless marriage in San Francisco. The couple met in France where Stevenson recuperated from health issues and moved to San Francisco, where he worked tirelessly despite lingering health matters in the production of a large volume of literary works. The secret of the "Great Amulet" is revealed at the conclusion of the episode.
• Eric Bond played Philip Adams in the 1957 episode "The Washington Elm". A Bostonian, Adams yearns to live in the Pacific Northwest and establishes a law office in Seattle, Washington, but his romantic interest, Janice Peabody (Havis Davenport) refuses to relocate. He takes with him a portion of the elm tree on the Harvard University campus and replants it at the University of Washington. Thirty years later, he returns to the Harvard campus to plant part of the Washington elm on the campus because the original tree was destroyed in a storm. A chance encounters with Janice, by then a widow, leads to a second chance at romance for the pair.
• Carol Booth (born 1941), in the 1969 episode, "Lucia Darling and the Ostrich", played a teacher trying to establish a school in 1863 in the since ghost town of Bannack, Montana. In the story line, a masked sheriff (William Bryant) and his deputy (Jeff Morris) rob the stagecoach bringing Lucia to Montana and steal both gold and her textbooks. She sets out to prove the officers' guilt despite the reservations of both the town itself – hence the reference to "The Ostrich" in the sand in the title of the episode – and her uncle, Judge Sidney Edgerton (Tol Avery), who shortly thereafter became the first governor of the Montana Territory.
• William Boyett played respected settler Jim Hardwicke in the 1954 episode "11,000 Miners Can't Be Wrong". In the story line, Columbia is in competition with Sacramento to be the site of the California state capital. When he informs the sheriff (Glenn Strange) that he had killed a man in self-defense, Hardwicke is forced to stand trial. Because of political influence placed on the jury, Hardwicke was found guilty. His lawyer, Ed Barrett (Gordon Barnes), develops a bizarre scheme to free his client from the hangman's noose. Barrett steals from a safe in the local bank a petition with 11,000 signatures of persons who want Columbia to be the capital, rewrites the first page to call for a pardon for Hardwicke, and appeals to the governor, who is impressed that so many signed. The governor orders Hardwicke's release, but Columbia lost out to Sacramento. In another role, Boyett played Dr. Edward Wilson in the 1957 Death Valley Days episode, "The Luck of the Irish". In the story line, while fighting an epidemic among the Paiute, Dr. Wilson encounters a young white woman, Kay Casey (Rosemarie Ace), who was taken by the Indians years earlier. When the doctor unites Kay with her large family, she leaves the Paiute and in time became Mrs. Wilson. John Sorrentino played the sympathetic Chief Red Cloud.
• Ray Boyle guest starred as Bruce Matthews, a young miner with claustrophobia, in the 1954 episode, "Yaller".
• Lane Bradbury was cast as a young Eliza Stewart Udall at Pipe Spring in southern Utah in the 1969 episode, "A Key for the Fort". In the story line, Miss Stewart, a Mormon pioneer, sends the first telegraph message from Arizona Territory and works with her Aunt Cora (Ivalou Redd) to find an innovative way to nurse an ill Ute chief, Black Wing (George Keymas), back to health. The episode also stars Gregg Palmer as Jacob. The episode was filmed at Pipe Spring National Monument.
• Lane Bradford played the historical Indian chief Sequoyah, the namesake of Sequoia National Park, in the 1954 episode "Sequoia". The segment covers Sequoyah from his earliest years to his development of the Cherokee alphabet. Carol Thurston and Angie Dickinson played Sali and Ayoka, respectively. Bradford played California pioneer Jim Savage in the 1959 episode, "The Blonde King." A friend of the Indians, Savage works to stop a threat to the peace of the Yosemite Valley.
• Neville Brand was cast as John Wesley Hardin in the 1962 episode, "Preacher with a Past." In his reformed role as a minister, Hardin faces a dilemma when Deke (Richard Devon) will expose his identity unless he helps break Herschel (Chris Robinson) out of jail. Roy Engel played Sheriff Smathers.
• David Brian played the Mormon figure Jacob Hamblin in the 1963 episode "The Peacemaker". In the story line, Hamblin works feverishly to hold the peace treaty with the Navajo after a white man kills some Indians who come onto his property. Bing Russell, Michael Pate, and Richard Webb also appear in this episode.
• Paul Brinegar played a prospector, Sawbuck, in the episode "Solid Gold Cavity", filmed in Sedona, Arizona. In the story line based on a true incident, Sawbuck saves the life of Dr. John Beers, a young dentist, who on the trail to San Francisco is attacked and left for dead by two bandits. Dr. Beers (played by Thomas Peters) repays Sawbuck by taking some of the prospector's gold and making him a set of gold teeth, for which Beers subsequently obtained a patent. In "The Lady and the Sourdough", Brinegar plays a cantankerous cook who teams up with a gold miner, Tom Despo (Stanley Adams), until he meets a neighboring widow (Amzie Strickland). In 1969, Brinegar played the Death Valley pioneer Jimmy Dayton (died 1899) in the episode "Jimmy Dayton's Bonanza". In the story line, the aging rancher Dayton takes a saloon girl, played by Marilyn O'Connor, as his wife, but she has second thoughts after she learns that he has exaggerated his wealth. James Wainwright (1938–1999) co-stars as a cowboy who feigns an interest in Mrs. Dayton. The episode was released three days after the death of series host Robert Taylor.
• Susan Brown was cast as Wilhelmina Vail in the 1970 episode, "Talk to Me, Charley". In the story line, Wilhelmina arrives to claim her late brother's gold mine, which is being managed by his friends Charley Gentry (Sean McClory) and Stokes LaFever (Hal Baylor), who have staved off claim jumpers. Soon romance develops between Wilhelmina and Stokes, leaving Charley as the odd man out..
• Richard Bull, pre-Little House on the Prairie, was cast as Jeremy Hatcher in the 1970 episode, "Amos and the Black Bull." In the story line, Amos Kolb, played by Anthony Costello (1938-1983), wants to marry Maggie (Heidi Vaughn), Hatcher's ward. Hatcher refuses permission unless Amos can demonstrate financial security. Amos devises a plan to trade a black bull for some Indian land, where he can establish a homestead with Maggie.
• Red Buttons played Levi Strauss, the inventor of Levi jeans, in the 1960 episode, "The Million Dollar Pants". Lisa Gaye and Ted Knight also appeared in this episode.

C

• Rory Calhoun played the legendary Arizona Ranger Burt Mossman in the 1963 episode "The Measure of a Man". In the story line, Mossman convinces a reluctant Burt Alvord (Bing Russell) to set a trap to catch the elusive bandit Augustine Chacon (Michael Pate). Mossman has Chacon handcuffed and orders Alvord to toss away the key. Chacon is hanged thereafter for a past conviction for which he had escaped. In the 1966 episode "Water Bringer" Calhoun played early California entrepreneur William A. Richardson, who arrives in the future San Francisco off the ship, the Orion. Lita Baron, Calhoun's then wife, was cast as Maria Martinez, the future Mrs. Richardson. Will Kuluva played the part of Maria's father, Commandante Ygnacio Martinez. Don Haggerty played the embittered Captain Hayworth, commander of the Orion.
• Charles Carlson, who had a limited acting career from 1960 to 1967, was cast as Wild Bill Hickok in the 1962 episode, "The Truth Teller," the story of the Medicine Lodge Treaty of 1867. Barney Phillips appeared as the historical General Winfield Scott Hancock.
• John Carradine, in the 1961 episode, "Miracle at Boot Hill", was cast as a stranger coming into a western town who falsely claims that he can resurrect the dead. His promise creates tension for Bill Groat (Peter Hansen), who is trying to profit from his past crimes.
• Conlan Carter portrayed L. Frank Baum, the creator of The Wizard of Oz, in a 1970 episode.
• Anthony Caruso was cast as the frontiersman and trick shot artist Buckskin Frank Leslie in the 1958 episode "The Gunsmith," with Robert Fuller cast as gunsmith Alex. In the story line, Leslie comes to town to see his old flame Mary (Anita Gordon), Alex's fiancé who wants nothing to do with Leslie. In 1959, Caruso was cast as Cabrio, a self-proclaimed member of the Black Hand in "The Invaders".
• Kathleen Case was cast as Helen Crosby in the 1953 episode, "The Lady with the Blue Silk Umbrella." In the story line, Crosby hides the official California statehood documents from ruffians trying to steal them. Rick Vallin was cast as Lieutenant Bob Hastings. Shen then portrayed schoolteacher Ruth Stewart in the 1958 episode, "The Gambler and the Lady", with Mark Dana (1920–2015) as businessman and gambler Brad Forrester. In the story line, heavyweight boxer John L. Sullivan (Roy Jenson) comes to a western town to fight an exposition match against the local Buck Jarrico (Hal Baylor). When the prize money earmarked to refurbish the school goes missing, both the teacher and the gambler are falsely accused based on appearances.
• Winnie Chandler (1900-1983) was cast as housekeeper Minnie in the 1958 episode, "The Moving Out of Minnie". In the story line, rancher Herb Gulic (Don Kelly) (1924-1966) sends Minnie back to her tribe when he weds Henrietta (Karen Norris) (1927-1996). Then Henrietta's daughter, Carol (Larrian Gillespie), is stricken, and Gulic must try to bring Minnie back to care for her in an emergency.
• Stephen Chase (1902–1982) played the historic Sam Houston, with Nancy Rennick (1932–2006), as Houston's second and much younger wife, Margaret Lea Houston, in the 1958 episode, "The Girl Who Walked with a Giant." The story focuses on Margaret's important role as a confidant of her husband from his days as president of the Republic of Texas to his time as governor, a postthat he resigned in 1861 because he could not support the Confederate States of America. The episode, however, has no connection to the Death Valley country. Chase was cast too as Colorado sheep rancher Ed Pratt in the 1958 episode "The Mystery of Suicide Gulch." In the story line, Pratt disbelieves his son Loren (Lee Anthony), who loses a large number of sheep while on a drive. The culprit, as it developed, was a toxic plant on which the sheep had grazed. Chase was cast as a minister, Joshua Coleman, in the 1959 episode, "Eruption at Volcano," a story not of an explosive volcano but a Confederate attempt to take over the community of Volcano, California. Brett Halsey played Coleman's son, Joel. The two join forces to thwart the dissidents.
• Ken Clark was cast as the shanghaied sailor Joe Chapman in the 1958 episode, "Yankee Pirate." In the story line, Mexican families in early California are beset by a group of pirates, but the Ortega family resists. The captured Joe Chapman becomes a hard worker and soon falls in love with Lupe Ortega (Pamela Duncan), who had saved him from execution.
• Phyllis Coates was cast as the widowed Mary in the 1959 episode, "One in a Hundred." Michael Forest played cavalryman Larry Brooks, who is escorting pioneers across peaceful Indian country. The party runs into a lack of water, and Brooks becomes attracted to Mary. In 1964, Coates was cast as the kind-hearted saloon singer Dora Hand of Dodge City, Kansas, in the episode entitled, "The Left Hand Is Damned." In the story line, Dora nurses an ungrateful gunslinger, Bill Crawford (John Clarke) back to health after he is shot by Dora's boss, Mayor James H. Kelley (Stephen Roberts), in self-defense. Having lost the use of his right hand, Crawford develops skills with his left hand and vows to kill Kelley. Instead, he killed Dora, thinking that her silhouette in Kelley's house was Kelley, who was instead away on business.
• James Coburn played Captain Steve Barnes in the 1960 episode, "Pamela's Oxen." In the story line, Ida Lupino, as Pamela Mann, loans the oxen to Sam Houston's army for the winter. The episodes also starred James Callahan as Private Riggs and Robert Sorrells as Fergus.
• Robert Colbert was cast as Andy Carter, a pioneer who retrieves for sale cast-off items from wagon trains, in the 1964 episode, "A Bargain Is for Keeping." Sue Randall played Mary Ann Duncan, who finds a missing family heirloom among Carter's goods. He insists that she work for him to gain possession. Karl Swenson was cast as Abe Hughes.
• Don Collier and Jan Clayton were cast as Josiah Wilbarger and his sister, Margaret, in the 1967 episode, "The Man Who Wouldn't Die". Wilbarger, a native of Virginia, lived for eleven years after being scalped by the Comanche. Wilbarger County, Texas, is named in his honor. Collier was also cast as Frank Dalton in the 1964 episode, "There Was Another Dalton Brother". In the story line, while starting his job as a deputy U.S. Marshal, Dalton must question Frank Johnson, a suspect in a missing persons case. Johnson is the father of Dalton's girlfriend, Emmy Johnson (Laura Shelton) . Strother Martin was cast in this episode as Charlie Neel. Robert Anderson played Marshal Heck Thomas.
• Ben Cooper appeared as Jason Tugwell in the unusually named 1969 episode, "Biscuits and Billy, the Kid", the story of a pioneer family deserted by the wagon train en route to Utah. Erin Moran was cast as their young daughter, Mary, who is ill with a high fever. They survived the threat of Indians by the popularity of the biscuits of Mrs. Ellie Tugwell (Emily Banks) and their dainty blue-eyed white goat called Billy. Michael Hinn (1913-1988) appeared near the end of the episode as the Mormon figure Brigham Young preaching peace on the frontier.
• Jeanne Cooper was cast as pioneer woman Rachel Barrett in the 1969 episode "A Gift". In the story line, Rachel pleads with an Indian chief (Valentin de Vargas) to spare the lives of her husband and son, played by Harry Lauter and Michael Courtney, respectively, as the family waits on an approaching wagon train. Cooper also played Ann Dix in the 1955 episode "I Am Joaquin". In the story line, Ann searches with ultimate success for eight years for the return of her young daughter whom the Mexican bandt Joaquin Murrieta left at a Roman Catholic church after he boarded a ship and stabbed to death the girl's father, Capt. Stephen Dix, played by John Damler (1919–1984).
• Lloyd Corrigan was cast as the lucky hobo, Carl Herman, in the 1960 episode, "Money to Burn". Helen Kleeb played a recipient of Herman's largess. Paul Sorensen and William Boyett played the thieves whose $50,000 worth of loot Herman found and gave away. In 1962, he was cast as Dorsey Bilger, the bearer of tall tales in Totem, Idaho, in the episode, "A Sponge Full of Vinegar". In the story line, the townspeople have begun to tire of Bilger's stories. This episode also featured Chris Alcaide as Charlie Winslow and Paul Birch as Sheriff Lick.
• Jerome Courtland was cast as newspaperman William Byers in the episode, "The Race at Cherry Creek". In the story line, Byers races against time to put out the first newspaper in the Colorado Territory during the gold rush year of 1859. His Rocky Mountain News became the first publication in the territory. Though strongly encouraged in the pursuit by his wife Elizabeth (Nancy Rennick), Byers' pressman, Andy Kate (Alvy Moore), is pessimistic about their chances of publishing first.
• Dennis Cross appeared three times in episodes "Treasure of Elk Creek Canyon" (1961), and as the Indian Captain Dick in "Captain Dick Mine" and "The Rider" (both 1965).
• Joel Crothers was cast in the 1960 episode, "3-7-77", as Jim Badger, who tangles with corrupt lawmen and vigilantes.
• Kathleen Crowley appeared as Elizabeth Hayward in "Somewhere beyond the Vultures" (1959).
• Robert Culp was cast as the accused robber and killer James Stuart in the 1961 episode, "Alias James Stuart". The episode focuses on mistaken identity: whether this Stuart, who claims to be honest citizen Tom Burdue, knifed to death a storekeeper named Jansen. Eleanor Berry (1906–1991) was cast as Mrs. Stuart, who can identify her abusive but charismatic husband.
• Ken Curtis appeared as a muleskinner, James "Paddy" Graydon (1832–1862), in the 1964 episode "Graydon's Charge", a dramatization of one of the last clashes of the American Civil War in New Mexico Territory. In the story line, the Union Army plans an attack against a renegade Confederate camp. Denver Pyle played Graydon's partner, Ortho Williams. They two eye the attention of a widow (Cathy Lewis) and seek to show their courage to win her hand. Graydon agrees with reluctance to send his mules, laden with dynamite into the rival camp. The episode is semi-comedic. Graydon's story is the subject of the 1992 book, Captain Paddy Graydon: Desert Tiger, by the historian Jerry D. Thompson.

D

• Marcel Dalio played Victor Rosseau in the 1960 episode, "The Battle of Mokolumne Hill", with Roy Engel as Colonel John Charles Fremont. In the story line, Lieutenant Bill Bradshaw (Dallas Mitchell) is ordered to collect California state taxes in the 1850s from immigrant gold miners who rebel against the government thought Bradshaw is sympathetic to the miners. H. M. Wynant was cast as Paul Martain in this episode.
• Michael Dante appeared as the Californios commander in "Olvera" (1959) and was cast as the ill-fated half-breed Clay Squires, with Robert Taylor as Ben Cotterman and June Dayton as Cotterman's wife, Rachel, in the 1969 episode, "Long Night at Fort Lonely"
• Christopher Dark appeared as the designated heir to the chieftainship of the Shoshone who runs afoul of the tribe's jealous religious leader's supposed fear of the gods in "Human sacrifice" (1960).
• James Davidson played boxer James J. Corbett in the 1966 episode "The Fight San Francisco Never Forgot". John McLiam played Corbett's Olympic Club trainer and promotional rival Walter Watson.
• Alexander Davion, a French actor born in 1929, played Grand Duke Alexei Alexandrovich of Russia in the 1959 episode "The Grand Duke". John Lupton was cast as William F. Cody. In the story line, Cody acts as guide for the Grand Duke who is on a western bison hunt. The two develop a close friendship.
• Gail Davis appeared in two episodes of Death Valley Days, the 1952 episode "The Little Bullfrog Nugget" in which she played Mamie Jaggers, the only single woman in Bulldog, Nevada, where she had to contend with several suitors, and in the 1953 episode "Land of the Free" playing Jerrie Cabell. Davis would go on to star in her own western series Annie Oakley.
• Jim Davis, later Jock Ewing on CBS's Dallas, portrayed Mark Tabor, a U.S. representative from Nevada in the 1953 episode "Little Washington", set in 1878 in Carson City. This was the first of Davis's thirteen appearances on Death Valley Days. He portrayed Grat Dalton in the 1963 episode "Three Minutes to Eternity", about the simultaneous and last bank robberies in Coffeyville by the Dalton Gang. Davis played a wagon master, Ezra Meeker, abandoned by members of his wagon train who decided to stop the trip to Oregon instead to prospect for gold in the 1965 episode "Devil's Gate". In 1967, he played freighter Luke Campbell of Deadwood, South Dakota, in the episode "The Day They Stole the Salamander", a reference to a Salamander Safe. In 1969, Davis played Colonel William G. Butler (1831–1912), who takes revenge on the later ghost town of Helena, Texas, after its citizens refuse to disclose the killer of Butler's son, Emmett. Butler arranges for the San Antonio and Aransas Pass Railway to bypass Helena; instead Karnes City, south of San Antonio, became the seat of government of Karnes County. In a 1964 appearance, "After the OK Corral", Davis played Wyatt Earp, with John Clarke and Jeff Morris as his brothers, Virgil and Morgan Earp, respectively. William Tannen, Dan Stafford, and Bradley Stewart (1924–1995) were cast as Ike Clanton, Doc Holliday, and Curly Bill Brocius, respectively. The episode focuses on events after the infamous gunfight at the O.K. Corral on October 26, 1881.
• Dennis Day was cast as Jason Barnes, an ambitious railroad employee who is romancing the daughter, Cynthia Waterfield (Theona Bryant), of his boss, Clay Waterfield (Frank Willcox). Merry Anders portrayed Abby Jefferson.
• Rosemary DeCamp played newspaper editor Caroline Romney of Durango, Colorado, in the 1965 episode, "Mrs. Romney and the Outlaws". In the story line, the woman editor sounds the alarm for citizens to fight the Kimball/Sykes gang. Willard Sage played Marshal Christy. In the 1965 episode "Canary Harris v. the Almighty", DeCamp played Canary Harris, a widow who sues her church after a meteorite destroys her front porch. She bases her claim on the premise that God unjustly caused or allowed her calamity to occur. After the congregation and Reverend Medford Farr Robert O. Cornthwaite reject her claim, she files an appeal to his bishop Cyril Delevanti. Peggy Rea (pre-The Waltons) was cast as Canary's friend, Lucy.
• Yvonne DeCarlo played the title role of Clare Reed in the 1961 episode, "The Lady Was an M.D.", set in the 1890s. John Vivyan was cast as Ed Taylor, her suitor.
• Paul Donovan played a youthful Mark Twain in the 1957 episode, "Fifteen Paces to Fame". The segment focuses on Twain as a newspaper editor in the Comstock Lode mining country. Doug McClure was cast as Ganse Taylor.
• John Doucette portrayed Apache Chief Geronimo in the 1961 episode "Gamble with Death". His co-stars included Dick Sargent and Tom Greenway.
• James Douglas was cast as Steve Hewitt, a man who accidentally shoots to death the rescuing dogs of a miner, in the 1960 episode, "Dogs of the Mist".
• James Drury, pre-The Virginian, was cast as Joe Plato, with Hank Patterson as his friend, in the 1959 episode, "Ten Feet of Nothing".

E

• Penny Edwards appeared as Nan Gable in the 1958 episode, "Two-Gun Nan," the story of a woman sharpshooter affiliated with William F. Cody's Wild West Show. Nan sets out on a daring 180-day thoroughbred horse ride from San Francisco to New York City to prove that a woman could undertake such a task. Robert "Buzz" Henry (1931–1971) played her husband, Frank Gable, and William O'Neal (1898–1961) was cast as Cody. Still living in 1958, Nan Gable appeared with series host Stanley Andrews at the conclusion of the episode.
• Jack Elam was cast as Juan Cortina in the 1961 episode, "General Without a Cause" (1961). In the story line, Cortina, a Mexican rancher, outlaw, and folk hero, captures the gravely wounded Miles Owen (William Boyett) and Owen's guide, Delores (Lisa Gaye). Cortina expects to use Owen's wagon of guns for the resistance to the invading French troops. Despite his wounds, Owen conceals the location of the wagon and its water with hope against hope to convince Cortina to give up his outlaw ways and instead to work to save his country.
• Ross Elliott played lawyer Temple Houston, son of Sam Houston, in "The Reluctant Gun" (1959), some four years before Jeffrey Hunter played the part in the NBC television western series, Temple Houston. In the story line, Houston is called upon to defend Billy Jackson (Alan Reed, Jr.), an artistic young man who shoots in the back a gunslinger who threatened him. Don C. Harvey was cast as a sheriff. (with Robert Sorrells in an uncredited speaking role.)
• Hope Emerson appeared as "Big Liz" Barton, a miner who strikes it rich, in the 1958 episode of the same name. Percy Helton played her partner, Scrubby.
• Michael Emmet (1926-2009) portrays Captain Owen Manners in the 1959 episode, "A Bullet for the Captain". In the story line, Manners must prove that a friend, Fred Pierson (John Parrish) (1896-1988), is not supplying ammunition to hostile Indians. The .50 caliber rifles under question become chronically short of ammunition.
• Richard Emory played "The Death Valley Kid", a bank robber who outsmarted law enforcement in the third episode of the series in 1952.
• Roy Engel appeared as Colonel Henry B. Carrington in "Old Gabe" (1958) and as John C. Fremont in two other episodes, "Olvera" (1959) and "The Gentle Sword" (1960). He was cast too as Brigadier General Philip Kearny in the 1962 episode, "Las Tules" about the American occupation of Santa Fe, New Mexico.
• Jena Engstrom was cast as Maggie Woolf in the 1961 episode, "Storm over Truckeee". In the story line, Maggie and her father (Frederick Downs, Jr.), while headed to Truckee, California, take refuge in an abandoned cabin during a storm, but two outlaws, played by Corey Allen and George Keemas, arrive there as well.
• Gene Evans was cast as the historical Winfield Scott Stratton, a miner in Colorado, in the 1964 episode, "Sixty-seven Miles of Gold." James Best and Jack Albertson played Jimmy Burns and Pearlman, respectively. In the story line, Stratton strikes it rich as he signs his mining claim to a syndicate.

F to G

• Paul Fix played the hardy, cantankerous pioneer James Briton "Brit" Bailey, with Rosemary DeCamp as his equally defiant wife, Hannah, in the 1969 episode "Here Stands Bailey". In the story line, the Baileys are ordered off their land at what is now Bailey's Prairie, Texas, by Stephen F. Austin (John Carter), who is bringing the Old Three Hundred original settlers to the area. Austin has a change of heart and asks the Baileys to stay. Bailey dies with his final wish of interment standing upright facing west, hence his grave marker, "Here Stands Bailey Facing West."
• Harry Fleer was cast as Wyatt Earp in the 1957 episode, "Birth of a Boom." In the story line, prospector Jim Butler (Roy Bancroft) strikes a rich vein in Tonopah, Nevada, in 1900, which makes him and his partners, Johnny Regan (Joel Smith) and Tasker Oddie (Byron Keith), wealthy. The prospectors enlist Earp to stop claim jumping.
• Dick Foran played muleskinner Ferguson, with William Schallert as his partner, Dave Mesier, in the 1961 episode, "The Breaking Point". In the story line Shad Cullen (DeForest Kelley), Meiser's partner in a gold mine, knows that Ferguson and Mesier have discovered. Not wanting to share the gold, Cllen foments probably fatal discord. Grace Lee Whitney was cast as Verna.
• Wallace Ford and Irene Barton were cast as cantankerous rival miners, Buck Hansen and Jennie Parrish, in the 1953 episode, "Claim Jumping Jennie." When Jennie's daughter Linda (Karen Sharpe), educated in the East, visits her mother for the first time in seven years, Linda learns that her mother has not yet struck wealth though she had pretended to have done so in their letters. The episode ends with a partnership between Buck and Jennie to work their neighboring mines.
• Steve Forrest played later U.S. Senator William Borah in the 1963 episode, "The Lion of Idaho." In the story line, Borah as a young attorney defends a woman in Nampa, Idaho, on a murder charge.
• Ron Foster appeared as Silas Begg in "Rough and Ready" (1957).
• Douglas Fowley, as "Cap'n Peg Leg" (1960) seeks revenge on Charlie Tetlow and John Starkweather played by William Schallert and Paul Burke, respectively, for causing him to lose a leg. Jerry Paris was cast as Brian Brophy.
• Anne Francis was cast as the outlaw Pearl Hart, with Jesse Pearson as her boyfriend, Joe Boot, in the 1964 episode, "The Last Stagecoach Robbery". Despite his own hesitation, Boot joins Pearl in staging in 1899 what is called "the last stagecoach robbery" between Globe and Florence in the Arizona Territory. Pearl's intent was to return the money taken in the heist and to become a widely-known female bandit.. Both served time at the Yuma Territorial Prison. After two years, Boot escaped and was never seen again. The territorial governor pardoned Hart in 1902 on the condition that she leave Arizona.
• James Franciscus and Mary Webster appeared in the 1959 episode, "Lady of the Press", with Don Beddoe as newspaper magnate and senatorial candidate, Colonel Emmett.
• Arthur Franz in the 1961 episode "Justice at Jackson Creek" played the drunken, ostracized lawyer Paine Prim, who hesitates to help a miner in legal trouble. The episode also stars Dub Taylor as Jake; William Schallert as Carl Spenger, and Bill Bixby as Kinney.
• Charles Fredericks was cast as Marshal Heck Thomas in the 1960 episode, "A Wedding Dress". Brad Johnson played Marshal Bill Tilghman, who in the story line is in pursuit of the Doolin gang in the Oklahoma Territory. J. Pat O'Malley was cast as Horace Capshaw and Mary Webster as Mrs. Tilghman.
• Robert Fuller, more than a year before he began his role as Jess Harper in NBC's Laramie, was cast in the 1958 episode "Ten in Texas" as Johnny Santos, an accused rustler who is on trial for having changed brands and seizing cattle from the historic XIT Ranch in the Texas Panhandle. Harry Strang and Ray Corrigan played, respectively, XIT general manager B. H. "Barbecue" Campbell and Abner Pickens "Ab" Blocker (1856–1943), the developer of the XIT brand. The year before, Fuller appeared in "The Gunsmith".
• Parker Garvie was cast in a 1956 episode as "Emperor" Joshua Norton, a businessman who loses his fortune and becomes an eccentric in San Francisco in the 1860s. He declareds himself "Emperor of Mexico". His compatriots treat his claims with kindness until his death.
• Lisa Gaye plays the widowed Faith Turner who places a sign seeking a husband and a father for her young son in the 1965 episode "The Rider". Jesse Pearson (1930–1979) was cast as mail express rider Jim Barnes, who tries to help her find a suitable mate. Gaye played a woman fortune-teller in Julesburg, Colorado, in the 1966 Death Valley Days episode, "The Gypsy." Dennis Cross portrayed Monte Dunning, an evil man who murders a miner named Gross (Bill Zuckert), so that The Gypsy's prediction comes true. In 1968, Gaye played the gambler-turned-Sunday school-teacher Lottie Deno in the episode, "Lottie's Legacy". In the dramatization, Lottie falls in love with the Reverend Peter Green (John Clarke), who does not know the details of her past. Gaye also appeared in another 1968 episode, "Green Is the Color of Gold", the story of Rosie Winters, who must adjust to isolation in the Death Valley country. Royal Dano played her husband, Aaron, who finds no gold but instead rich deposits of borax.
• Anthony George played Vincente Rosetti in "The Invaders", the story of Italian immigrants in the Old West who face threats from an organized crime ring from the old country. George was cast too as Carlos in "Perilous Refuge". Both episodes aired in 1959.
• Frank Gerstle appeared as the villain Sam Walton in "The Mule Mail" and as Charley Parkhurst in "Cockeyed Charlie Parkhurst" (both 1958). Parkhurst was a woman posing as a man who became a horse expert and model driver for Wells Fargo & Co. in California. The title refers to the loss of an eye in an accident.
• George Gobel appeared as Baylor Thomas, a visionary who tries to develop the use of wind power for moving wagons west, in the 1963 episode "Thar She Blows".

H

• Ron Hagerthy, formerly the nephew Clipper on Sky King, appeared as Felix in the 1958 episode, "Old Gabe".
• Don Haggerty, among multiple roles, played Horace Tabor in the 1967 episode "Chicken Bill", with Dub Taylor in the title role of the Colorado silver miner "Chicken Bill" Lovell. In the story line, Lovell salts his mine to get Tabor to pay off Lovell's lingering debt and to fund his continued operation. n the 1969 Death Valley Days episode, "Old Stape", Haggerty played an eccentric thief who outwits lawmen from his rundown shack along the border of the United States and the Republic of Texas.
• Alan Hale was cast as stagecoach driver Abe Williamson, who pursues the murderous Reynolds Brothers, played by Dennis Cross and John Considine, in the 1961 episode, "The Treasure of Elk Creek Canyon". The brothers had stolen only the fifteen cents that Williamson had in his possession.
• Luke Halpin (Sandy Ricks in the films, Flipper (1963) and Flipper's New Adventure (1964), and Flipper (television series), played the role of Sandy King, the youngest member of the "Curly Bill" Brocius outlaw gang in the 1968 episode "A Mule ... Like the Army's Mule".
• James Hampton, later of F Troop and The Doris Day Show, played publisher William Randolph Hearst in the 1964 episode, "The Paper Dynasty". James Lanphier (1920–1969) was cast as Ambrose Bierce. In the story line, Hearst struggles to turn a profit despite increased circulation of The San Francisco Examiner. Robert O. Cornthwaite appears as Sam Chamberlain; Barry Kelley as George Hearst, the father of William Randolph Hearst.
• Brett Halsey appeared as Joel, the son of a minister, Joshua Coleman (Stephen Chase) in the 1959 episode, "Eruption in Volcano".
• Peter Hansen as the town doctor Allen Camden had been passed over for the store owner Grant Russell Johnson by the beautiful Bella. When a survivor of the Battle of the Little Big Horn played by John Milford comes looking for revenge on Grant who had been selling government food meant for the Indians whence driving them out to look for food, Hansen sees his chance to right a wrong while winning Bella.
• Mariette Hartley appeared four times between 1965 and 1968. She portrayed a Roman Catholic nun, Sister Blandina, in the 1967 episode, "Lost Sheep in Trinidad", the story of a wounded gunman, Montana Joe (Matt Clark), an associate of Billy the Kid, played by Tom Heaton (1940-2018). Sister Blandina tries but fails to nurse Montana Joe back to health, but no physician would treat the culprit. The story is set in the then unsettled town of Trinidad, Colorado. Hartley was cast as "Tiger Lil" in the 1968 episode, "Lady with a Past", the story of young woman who leaves the dance hall to become a dressmaker in search of anonymity. Host Robert Taylor played Frank Johnson, her suitor. Earlier in 1952, Tracey Roberts (1914–2002) was cast in the same role in "The Little Dressmaker of Bodie". In another 1968 episode, Hartley played Cynthia Fallon in "Dress for a Desert Girl", the story of a pioneer woman who yearns for a special store-bought blue dress, which her miner husband, Tom (Richard Beymer), never seems to have the money for the purchase.
• Allison Hayes was cast as Mary Granger, a pioneer woman engineer who comes West in the 1957 episode "Lady Engineer". In the story line, Granger must prove her worth to overcome discrimination in her profession. Gregg Palmer played Justin Cramer.
• Ron Hayes as newspaper editor Colonel Lounsberry loses his reporter friend at The Battle of the Little Big Horn in Montana. He scores "The Great Lounsberry scoop" about the battle with Walter Sande as the telegrapher who kept the lines open for eighty hours. Hayes also appeared as religious pacifist Dan Bartlett, continuing to dive for gold at "Devil's Bar" during an Indian uprising. Both episodes aired in 1960.
• Percy Helton played Alex Grant, who is arrested for a 15-year-old murder when he returns to a mining camp, in the 1955 episode, "The Hangman Waits." Things look bleak for Grant until his youthful lawyer, Greg Lewis (Clark Howat), locates a corroborating witness, 75-year-old Harry Gander (Hank Patterson), whose personal diary clears Grant. James Seay played corrupt district attorney Lucius Peck. Helton also appeared as Little Oscar and as Scrubby in the 1958 episode "Big Liz".
• William Henry was cast as the San Francisco lawyer Lew Barry in the 1952 episode, "Self Made Man." In the story line, Barry studies to become a lawyer after he loses an arm in a shooting and cannot earn his livelihood as a rock driller. Years later, he gains the acquittal on a murder charge of Jerry (Steve Conte), the man who shot him.
• Craig Hill was cast as the author Bret Harte in "Year of Destiny", the last episode of 1956. In the story line, Harte leaves the East and arrives in California in the 1850s. First a stagecoach guard, then a newspaper editor and schoolteacher, he finds fame as a western writer, the author of such short stories as "The Luck of Roaring Camp" and The Outcasts of Poker Flat".
• Michael Hinn (1913–1988) of the former Boots and Saddles western series played Brigham Young in the episode "Biscuits and Billy, the Kid". In the story line, the Tugwell family, Jason (Ben Cooper), Ellie (Emily Banks), and Mary (Erin Moran), are abandoned by their guide while on a wagon train from Utah to California. He was also in "The Watch".
• Boyd Hollister was cast as Bill Gentry, who is courting Susan Sayres (Sandra Marsh) in the 1961 episode, "The Third Passenger," a reference to a stray dog which witnesses the murder of Susan's father, Lew Sayres (Tyler McVey).
• Skip Homeier played a pastor, Ben Darniell, in Carson City, Nevada, in the 1965 oddly-titled episode, "Fighting Sky Pilot." In the story line, the minister Darniell attempts to rescue a saloon girl, Claire Vernon (Carol Brewster), from her oppressive employer.
• Rodolfo Hoyos, Jr. was cast as Governor Manuel Armijo in "La Tules" (1962) and as Governor Andrés Pico in "Olvera" (1959).
• Wes Hudman played the outlaw Curly Bill Brocius in the 1955 episode, "Death and Taxes". In the story line, novice deputy Bud Payson (Wayne Mallory) while courting the sheriff's daughter, June (Eve Brent), enlists the aid of Curly Bill to assist him in collecting property taxes from a large area of the Death Valley country which had not been previously taxed.
• William Hudson was cast as shrewd California businessman Elias Jackson "Lucky" Baldwin in the 1957 episode, "The Man Who Was Never Licked". Robert Argent played Adolph Sutro, a key player in the Comstock Lode. After two marriages, Baldwin wed 20-year-old Jennie Dexter (Daria Massey), who bears him a second daughter twenty years after the birth of his first daughter. The founder of the elegant Baldwin Hotel in San Francisco, he subsequently settled in a grand estate in the San Gabriel Valley in Los Angeles.In 1958, Hudson was cast in "Wheel of Fortune" in the role of the historical Lester Allan Pelton, a millwright in Camptonville, California, who in the late 1870s developed the principles of hydraulic mining.
• Mauritz Hugo appeared as Sure Thing Murdoch in the 1959 episode, "Half a Loaf", the story of the origin of the Sugar Loaf mine in Arizona.
• Jeffrey Hunter was cast as the historical Dr. Walter Reed in the 1962 episode, "Suzy". In the story line, Reed, a captain in the Army, and his wife, Emilie (Aneta Corsaut) take an abandoned Apache child found on the Arizona frontier and name her "Suzy." Then Suzy's grandfather, Chief Nahnee (Frank DeKova), demands the return of the child.
• Patricia Huston (1929-1995) was cast in the 1968 episode, "The Saga of Sadie Orchard," as a woman who takes the stagecoach reins from her husband John (John Pickard) after he was attacked by two bandits. Her accomplished mission is to deliver a silver shipment in Hillsboro, New Mexico Territory. Tris Coffin appeared in the episode as the silver mine owner, Edwards.

J

• Bradford Jackson (1928–2009) was cast as the Boston greenhorn Mac Gordon in the 1956 episode, "Pay Dirt." In the story line, Gordon is swindled by two men, played by Paul McGuire and Frank Richards, who sell him a worthless gold mining claim. The film actress Barbara Lang appears as his longsuffering wife, Norma. Jackson also played Asa Mercer, who recruits brides from the East to become wives of settlers in Seattle, Washington, in the 1957 episode "Mercer Girl". The women travel to the Northwest via ship. Norma Ward played Annie Stephens, Mercer's romantic interest.
• Sherry Jackson in the 1966 episode "Lady of the Plains" portrayed Katherine "Kate" Turner, a young woman from Boston who takes over a wagon train after the death of the trailmaster. DeForest Kelley played a gambler, Elliott Webster, who falls in love with Kate despite their age difference and the fact that she is engaged to marry once the wagon train reaches Salt Lake City, Utah.
• Vivi Janiss appeared as Deliah Murtaugh in the 1953 episode, "Dear Teacher", with Donna Corcoran, as her daughter, Gladys.
• David Janssen played Dr. Bill Breckenridge in the 1961 episode, "Deadline at Austin". Breckenridge attempts to beat the incompetent cronies of Governor Lambert (Stephen Chase) and hence save Austin, Nevada, from corruption. Jan Harrison played Ruth Woodruff, Breckenridge's romantic interest and the daughter of Mayor Horace Woodruff (Harry Shannon).
• Gloria Jean was cast as singer and actress Lotta Crabtree in the 1954 episode named "Lotta Crabtree." In the story line, Lotta lives in a gold mining camp in California where her mother Mary Ann Crabtree (Kay Stewart) operates a boarding house and her father, John Crabtree (Paul Weber, has become another failed prospector. Briefly under the tutelage of Lola Montez, Lotta demonstrates rare talent to become the most beloved entertainer in San Francisco
• Roy Jenson played boxer John L. Sullivan in the 1958 episode, "The Gambler and the Lady". In the story line, Sullivan in his tour of local communities across the country fights an exposition match against Buck Jarrico (Hal Baylor). When the prize money designated to refurbish the school goes missing, both the teacher, Ruth Stewart (Kathleen Case), and the gambler, Brad Forrester (Mark Dana), are falsely accused based on appearances. Marjorie Bennett appeared in this episode as Mrs. Baxter, the wife of the mayor.
• Brad Johnson appeared five times on Death Valley Days, including his 1952 portrayal of Death Valley pioneer William Lewis Manly in the first series episode, "How Death Valley Got Its Name". He was cast as Marshal Bill Tilghman in the 1960 episode, "A Wedding Dress." In the story line, Tilghman is in pursuit of the Doolin gang. in the Oklahoma Territory. He gets sidetracked from his goal, when he values a bride's loss as much as monied Horace Capshaw's, J. Pat O'Malley, putting his job in jeopardy. Charles Fredericks was cast as Heck Thomas. Mary Webster was cast as Mrs. Tilghman.
• Chubby Johnson portrayed Jake in "The Tenderfoot" (1968) and Davis in "The Other Side of the Mountain" (1969).
• Russell Johnson appeared as Sgt. Tate, part of Sam Houston's army, in the 1962 episode "Davy's Friend". He also played Matthew Reynolds, a US attorney, opposing James Reavis, the so-called "Baron of Arizona" (played by host Robert Taylor), in the 1968 episode “The Pieces of the Puzzle".
• I. Stanford Jolley, who appeared five times on the series was cast as J. V. Langley in "The Kickapoo Run" (1954), as Colby in "California's First Ice Man" (1955), as a guide in "California Gold Rush in Reverse" (1957), and in his final role of Bart Taylor in "Eruption at Volcano" (1959).
• Gordon Jones and Jane Frazee were cast as rival cafe owners Steve Bassett and Melodie Marshall in a western mining town in the 1953 episode, "The Rival Hash Houses." The arrangement leads to romance between the two as gold is discovered on a plot of land Melodie purchased from Steve to raise chickens. The episode also features Minerva Urecal and William Fawcett as Mattie and Flapjack Kelly, who work, respectively for Melodie and Steve..
• Katy Jurado in the 1960 episode, "La Tules", appeared as saloon owner Maria Gertrudis Barceló.

K

• Bruce Kay, who appeared only five times on screen between 1955 and 1958, played the half-Sioux scout Frank Grouard in the 1958 episode, "The Greatest Scout of All." Frank Richards (1909-1992) was cast as Sitting Bull. In the story line, Grouard is caught in a culture clash but becomes a highly regarded scout for the United States Army, who is dispatched on the toughest of assignments.
• Howard Keel was cast as Diamond Jim Brady in a 1963 episode of the same name. In the story line, while traveling by train in Texas, Brady accepts a nearly impossible wager that he can sell $100,000 worth of barbed wire to area ranchers who oppose such fencing without leaving the train.
• DeForest Kelley was cast as Shad Cullen, with William Schallert as Dave Meiser and Dick Foran as Ferguson, in the 1962 episode, "The Breaking Point." In the story line, Meiser suspects that a friend is trying to swindle him out of a valuable mine. Kelley played a convict, Martin, in the 1965 episode "Devil's Gate", with Jim Davis, and he was the gambler Elliott Webster in the 1966 episode, "The Lady of the Plains" with Sherry Jackson.
• Don Kennedy (born 1920), was cast in the lead role of Snowshoe Thompson, also the title of the 1954 episode. In the story line, Thompson used home-made snowshoes to carry the mail across the snows of the Sierra Nevadas into the various California mining camps. Thompson is considered the "father of California skiing."
• Don Kent (1911–1978) played William Bottle in the 1956 episode "Bill Bottle's Birthday." In the story line, Bottle nets $100,000 from the sale of a gold claim. He places advertisements in major newspapers inviting his Bottle relatives to attend a family reunion times with his birthday. While various "relatives" come to the party, they are imposters, but Bottle treats them warmly as if they were family.
• Brett King appeared as Butch Cassidy and Robert Knapp and June Dayton as Tom Dixon and wife Rose in "The Devil's Due" (1960).
• Robert Knapp was cast as Tom Dixon, a former outlaw trying to change his life and marry his sweetheart in the 1960 episode, "The Devil's Due". Wanted for a bank robbery, he is threatened when a member of his former gang, Cassidy (Brett King), arrives in town.
• Yaphet Kotto was cast as a religious man living in the southwestern desert country in the 1967 episode, "A Man Called Abraham". In the story line, Abraham convinces a killer named Cassidy (Rayford Barnes) that he can change his heart despite past crimes. When Cassidy is sent to the gallows, Abraham provides spiritual solace. Bing Russell also appeared in this segment.

L

• Stanley Lachman played United States Army Lieutenant Edward Fitzgerald Beale in two 1957 episodes, "The Camel Train" and "The California Gold Rush in Reverse." In the former, Beale is instructed by Secretary of War Jefferson Davis to conduct an experiment with the use of camels in the deserts of the American Southwest. William "Red" Reynolds (1927–1981) was cast as mountain man Kit Carson. In the second episode, Beale attempts to be the first to return East with a sample of newly-discovered California gold, but he must escape Mexican bandits to do so. Gil Lasky played John Studebaker in the 1959 episode, "Wheelbarrow Johnny". In the story line, young Studebaker fails at gold mining because con men take advantage of him. His talent for making wheelbarrows, however, paves the way for a bright future in the transportation industry. Emile Meyer appeared in this episode as the storekeeper, Sam Dalrymple. Harry Lauter, a character actor, appeared seven times on the series, twice as newspaperman Mel Hardin in "Gold Lake" and "Wheelbarrow Johnny".
• Bethel Leslie was cast as Esther Morris in the 1960 episode, "A Women's Rights". Morris demands justice for her husband's murder at the hands of the McGreevy gang (Bartlett Robinson). With the help of Lucretia Mott (Hope Summers) and Governor Lee (Frank Wilcox), she works successfully in 1869 for the passage of woman's suffrage in Wyoming and thereafter becomes the first female judge in the United States.
• Nan Leslie appeared in "Whirlwind Courtship" (1953).
• June Lockhart played librarian Ina Coolbrith, first poet laureate of California, in the 1965 episode, "Magic Locket". In the story line, Coolbrith develops a tenuous friendship with the teen-aged "Dorita Duncan" (Kathy Garver), who becomes the dancer Isadora Duncan. Sean McClory was cast as the poet Joaquin Miller, author of Songs of the Sierras.
• Jack Lomas (1911-1959) was cast as Walter E. Scott, or Death Valley Scotty in the 1955 episode also entitled "Death Valley Scottty". In the story line, Scotty in 1905 commissioned the "Scott Special," a passenger train of the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway, into a showcase run from Los Angeles to Chicago. The steam locomotive Santa Fe No. 1010 was used to re-create the record-setting 44-hour railroad run and was reconditioned especially for filming. William Schallert was cast as the historical Albert Mussey Johnson, Scotty's millionaire benefactor.
• Britt Lomond played the Spaniard James Addison Reavis in the 1956 episode "The Baron of Arizona." Two newspapermen doubt Reavis' claim to millions of acres in the New Mexico Territory, which then included Arizona. Though Reavis' papers seem authentic and date to colonial times, the reporters prove them to be fraudulent. In a 1968 episode about Reavis entitled, "The Pieces of the Puzzle", series host Robert Taylor portrayed the lead role, with Russell Johnson as Matthew Reynolds.
• Dayton Lummis portrayed New Mexico Territorial Governor Lew Wallace in "Shadows on the Window" (1960), with Martin Braddock as Billy the Kid and Katherine Warren as Mrs. Wallace. Also as owner De Lamar that same year he owned the "City of Widows" DeLamar, a company town where silicosis was killing miners in months with Ross Elliott as a newsman for the company's paper who could do nothing.
• William Lundigan was cast as Nathaniel Norgate in the 1961 episode, "Dangerous Crossing", which focuses on religious settlers who encounter outlaws operating an illegal tollgate.
• Ida Lupino was cast as Pamela Mann in the 1960 episode, "Pamela's Oxen." In the story line, the widowed Pamela resists letting Sam Houston (Jeff DeBinning)(1918-2012) take her oxen to carry cannon in the fight for Texan independence.
• John Lupton was cast as Buffalo Bill Cody in the 1959 episode "The Grand Duke." The Grand Duke of Russia is portrayed in the segment by Alexander Davion. The episode focuses on the friendship that developed when the skeptical Cody was assigned by the Army to escort The Grand Duke on a western buffalo hunt. In 1961, Lupton was cast in "South of Horror Flats" as Pinkerton agent Allen Hodges, who is hired by a ghost-plagued woman, Abigale Briton (Jocelyn Somers), to take her and her fortune in gold to San Francisco. In 1962, Lupton was cast in the episode, "The Private Mint of Clark, Gruber and Co.", as Milton Clark with Jerry Paris as Emmanuel Gruber, two Denver bankers who impact U.S. government policy regarding the operation of the mint. Sue Randall portrayed Clark's wife, Martha.

M

• Tyler MacDuff played Norman Berry in the 1956 episode, "The Hoodoo Mine". In the story line, Berry is prospecting for gold with the dishonest Bill Snyder (Duane Grey). When Snyder leaves Berry for dead in the desert to steal his part of the claim, a young Indian woman, Lupin (Linda Brent), comes to Berry's rescue. She had earlier tipped him off on the location of a gold strike.
• Gavin MacLeod was cast in the 1968 episode, "The Great Diamond Mines", as prospector Phil Arnold, who with his partner and cousin, Johnny Slack (John Fiedler), deceive San Francisco banker William Chapman Ralston (Tod Andrews) into buying their salted and worthless diamond mine at an undisclosed desert location. Allen Wood played Clarence King, the government geologist and later the first director of the United States Geological Survey.
• Murray MacLeod and Dennis Whitcomb were cast as two young men, Cliff and Frank, respectively, released from the United States Army still living on a temporarily deserted western fort in the 1969 episode "A Full House". The two engage in a poker game in which the loser agrees to get married; soon both are in love and things fall into place like a storybook romance. Heidi Vaughn and June Zachary play the female leads.
• Guy Madison was cast as Will Short in the 1960 episode, "Extra Guns". In the story line, Short battles a corrupt city hall. Jon Lormer and Wilton Graff also appeared in this episode as Sutton and A. B. Webster, respectively.
• Wayne Mallory played deputy Bud Payson in the 1955 episode, "Death and Taxes". While courting the sheriff's daughter (Eve Brent), Payson enlists the aid of Curly Bill Brocius (Wes Hudman) to help him collect property taxes from a large area of the Death Valley country which had not been previously taxed.
• Dorothy Malone in the 1961 episode, "The Watch", played Mary Parker, a beautiful young woman who is the object of rivalry between two men involved in a mine cave-in, Rafe Pegarski (Steve Clinton) and Jack Short (Bing Russell).
• Michael Margotta played a youthful Butch Cassidy in the 1969 episode "Drop Out" set in Utah of the 1880s. In the story line, 16-year-old George Leroy Parker is rebellious against his father, Maxy Parker (Russ Conway), and his church bishop, played by William Zucker. He takes the name of a much older rustler acquaintance, Mike Cassidy (Tony Russel) and sets forth to Salt Lake City. The episode aired the same year as the film, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.
• Joe Maross starred as the pioneer William Eddy in the 1964 episode, "Hastings Cut-off". A survivor of the 1846 Donner Party, Eddy grieves the loss of his wife and children and vows revenge against Lansford Hastings (Robert Ellenstein), who in The Emigrant's Guide to Oregon and California recommended his Hastings Cutoff, a shortcut through the Rocky Mountains that had been useful for an earlier wagon train but proved disastrous for the Donner party and its late timing on the trip west. Others in the cast are Ellen Burstyn as Jenny and John Alderson as Big Mac.
• Linda Marsh was cast as the historical Susan Shelby Magoffin, the first woman to travel the Santa Fe Trail in the 1965 episode, "No Place for a Lady." Simon Scott played Magoffin's husband, Samuel, and host Ronald W. Reagan was cast as frontiersman William Bent.
• Strother Martin played a country chicken farmer, Alfred Hall, who sues an insurance company for underpayment in the 1966 comedy segment "The Four Dollar Law Suit". In the story line, Hall seeks the additional $4 he believed owed him after his chicken coop burns to the ground. J. Pat O'Malley plays his attorney; Anthony Costello, the school teacher, and Amzie Strickland his wife. In the 1967 episode "Silver Tombstone", Martin played the Arizona miner Ed Schieffelin, who after years of failure is convinced he is on the verge of a silver strike in Tombstone, Arizona. He invites his brother to join him in the pending strike. Jamie Farr appears as Dick Gird.
• Tony Martin was cast as Amadeo Giannini in the 1962 episode, "The Unshakeable Man", a dramatization of the establishment of the Bank of America. The story line focuses on Giannini saving his bank from the impact of the 1906 San Francisco earthquake and turning it into the largest financial institution in the world. The episode also starred Parley Baer as Crowder.
• Daria Massey plays newlywed Janet Gee in the 1957 episode, "The Rosebush of Tombstone", the story of the largest rosebush in the United States established in Tombstone, Arizona. A native of Scotland, Janet moves with her husband to Tombstone, Arizona, where she befriends rough women and cares for a homeless Indian boy. A rosebush from her mother lifts her spirits. Almira Sessions is cast in this episode as shrewd businesswoman Nellie Cashman.
• Jack Mather, among five appearances on Death Valley Days, played legendary cattleman Charles Goodnight in the 1959 episode, "Old Blue", hosted by Stanley Andrews. The story focuses on Goodnight's lead steer, Old Blue, who is stolen and thereafter adopted as a family pet. Myron Healey was cast in this episode as Red Snell and Jeanne Bates as Helen.
• Carole Mathews was cast as Belle Starr in the 1961 episode, "A Bullet for the D.A." In the story line, Belle unsuccessfully plots the revenge assassination of United States Attorney W. H. H. Clayton (Don Haggerty) during a Wild West show in Fort Smith, Arkansas. William Thourlby was cast as Belle's husband, Sam Starr, and Carlyle Mithcell, in his penultimate acting role as "Hanging Judge" Isaac Parker, under whom Clayton served.
• Hedley Mattingly was cast as the photographer Eadweard Muybridge in the 1964 episode, "The $25,000 Wager." In the story line, former Governor Leland Stanford (Harry Holcombe) (1906–1987), a race-horse owner, hires Muybridge, to determine by multiple cameras whether all four legs of a horse are briefly off the ground while trotting. Diane Brewster was cast as Muybridge's wife, Flora.
• Ken Mayer was cast as Marshal Hobe Martin in the 1962 episode, "Girl with a Gun." In the story line, an outlaw's vengeful daughter, Jennie Metcalf (Anne Helm), joins her father's gang after he is justifiably killed in a showdown with the marshal.
• Patty McCormack appeared as young Virginia Reed in the 1960 episode, "A Girl Called Virginia", with John Anderson as her stepfather, James F. Reed. Edward Platt was cast as Frank Graves. In the story line, the Donner Party crosses the Sierra Nevadas, but the Reeds are banished after a dispute ends in a death. Virginia proves helpful beyond her years as the family faces great hardship while headed to Sutter's Fort, California.
• Darren McGavin was cast as Zacharias Gurney in the 1961 episode, "The Stolen City". When he is being cheated out of his store, Gurney is enlisted by future United States Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton to stop the theft and turns to Tarbula (Vladimir Sokoloff) who had been the maker of the government seals which may hold a clue to the fraud.
• Ann McCrea was cast in three episodes, including Melinda Pratt in "Mr. Bigfoot" (1956) and "Pirates of San Francisco" (1960).
• Jody McCrea was cast as Lieutenant John J. Pershing in the 1962 episode, "To Walk with Greatness." In the story line, three outlaws endanger an Indian treaty, as Pershing sets forth to find the men. Frank Ferguson was cast as Colonel Carr.
• Tim McIntire in the 1965 episode "The Lawless Have Laws" played Lorenz Oatman, a young man who obtains the help of an Army officer, Lieutenant Colonel Burke (Ronald Reagan), in the search for his long lost sister, Olive Oatman (Shary Marshall) from whom he was separated five years earlier when the Apache killed their parents in a raid.
• David McLean was cast as frontiersman Kit Carson in the 1963 episode, "Stubborn Mule Hill". Charles Bateman was cast as Carson's friend, the famous Army Lieutenant Edward Fitzgerald Beale. McLean also appeared as Stephen F. Austin in the 1964 episode, "A Book of Spanish Grammar." In the story line, Austin travels to Mexico City to purchase land in colonial Texas to sell to future settlers. His traveling companion, Valdez (Rodolfo Acosta), wonders why Austin risks so much to help strangers.
• Tyler McVey appeared four times, including as a priest in the 1962 episode "Abel Duncan's Dying Wish" and in the 1969 segment "The Oldest Outlaw".
• Sam Melville was cast as Indian agent John Clum in the 1970 episode, "Clum's Constabulary." In the story line, Clum recruits an elite team of Apaches to assist the U.S. Cavalry in the Southwest but faces opposition within the white community. Tris Coffin was cast as Captain Loren Phillips and John Considine as Lago.
• Denny Miller played Gustaf Olaffson in the 1968 episode, "Britta Goes Home." In the story line, Gustaf awaits the arrival of his Swedish bride, Britta (Susanne Cramer). While headed to Gustaf's sod house, Britta becomes disillusioned about her future. Then a visit with other homesteaders help her overcome her fear.
• Cameron Mitchell was cast as Pete Kitchen, an Arizona pig farmer and rancher battling Indians even on his wedding night in the 1960 episode, "Pete Kitchen's Wedding Night." Barbara Luna played his bride, Dona Rosa.
• Ewing Mitchell played Edmund S. Meany in the 1957 episode, "The Washington Elm", and Fred Gerlock in the 1958 episode, "The Red Flannel Shirt".
• George Mitchell played Charley Stoner whose nature savy helped him strike it rich in "Fair Exchange"
• Roger Mobley was cast as Matt Denby, Jr., in the 1960 episode, "The Madstone." In the story line, young Denby is bitten by a rabid animal. Myron Healey played Denby's father, whose wife walks out on him after their farm fails. Denby, Sr., is alienated from the boy's maternal grandfather, Caleb Reese (George Macready).
• Ricardo Montalban played Joaquin Murrieta " in the 1960 episode, "Eagle in the Rocks". Others cast in the episode were Karl Swenson, Lisa Gaye, and Jack Kruschen.
• Alvy Moore, prior to his role as county agent Hank Kimball on CBS's Green Acres situation comedy, played in the 1962 episode "The Grass Man" the Swiss-American botanist David Douglas, for whom the Douglas fir tree is named. Keenan Wynn co-starred as Douglas' friend, Josh Tavers. Iron Eyes Cody played an Indian chief who threatens to kill Douglas and Tavers.
• Erin Moran was cast, pre- Happy Days, at the age of nine as Mary Elizabeth Foster in the 1969 episode, "The Tenderfoot", the story of three orphans in the West given rights to a gold mine. Mitch Vogel played her middle brother, Jerry Ray Foster; Kevin Burchett, their older brother, Billy Earl Foster, and Chubby Johnson as the prospector Jake.
• Byron Morrow made a cameo appearance as Mormon figure Brigham Young in the 1966 episode "An Organ for Brother Brigham". In the story line, the organ crafted and guided to Salt Lake City by Joseph Harris Ridges (1827–1914) of Australia, played by Hedley Mattingly, becomes mired in sand. Morgan Woodward, as wagon master Luke Winner, feels compelled to jettison the instrument until Ridges finds solid rock under the sand.
• Vic Morrow was cast as soldier/engineer Lt. Robert Benson in the 1962 episode, "A Matter of Honor". The story focuses on Benson's fiancée, Indiana (Shirley Ballard) (1925-2012), who tries to persuade him to boost their income by selling inside Army information to criminal real estate moguls like Joseph Hooker (Howard Petrie). Trevor Bardette and Meg Wyllie were cast as Captain and Mrs. Warner.
• Ken Murray was cast as prospector Dave Elldridge, with his junnior partner, Dick Sargent as Cliff Streeter, in the 1960 episode, "Gamble with Death". Murray subsequently played Whipsaw, the operator of a Utah Territory stagecoach depot, in the 1964 episode, "Little Cayuse". In the story line, Whipsaw and his partner in 1862 take in a Cayuse orphan (Larry Domasin), who demonstrates his loyalty to the men during an Indian attack.

N to O

• Anna Navarro (1933–2006) portrayed 17-year-old Maria in the 1956 episode, "The Hidden Treasure of Cucamonga". In the story line, Maria upon the sudden death of her father, becomes mistress of a large California ranch. After she marries a persistent suitor, Don Pedro (Richard Gilden), a dream leads her to the discovery of a fortune stashed away by her father in the wall of her bedroom.
• Ed Nelson was cast in the 1962 episode, "Fort Bowie: Urgent", as Frank Girard, an escaped convict who heads to Fort Bowie, Arizona, with the intent of disrupting a wedding. The newly-invented telegraph is the only thing that can stop Girard.
• Leonard Nimoy played Yellow Bear in "The Journey" (1965), with Wayne Rogers as Richard Henry Pratt and Robert J. Wilke as Sergeant Wilks, two cavalry officers who disagree on how to handle Indian prisoners.
• Carol Nugent was cast as Nancy Drake in the 1957 episode "The Calico Dog". In the story line, Nancy is at first jealous of Colonel, the dog of her fiancé, John Chapman (Warren Frost). The Colonel proves his worth by becoming a mail carrier between mining camps in the Death Valley country.
• Erin O'Brien was cast as the singer Emma Nevada in the 1960 episode, "Emma Is Coming." Rick Jason was cast in this episode as Duke Clayton, and Alan Reed played the impressario James Henry Mapleson.
• Carroll O'Connor was cast in the 1963 episode, "A Gun Is Not a Gentleman", as U.S. Senator David C. Broderick, a California Democrat. In the story, Broderick, who has never used a gun, is challenged to a duel by former political ally, former California Supreme Court justice David S. Terry (Brad Dexter). Broderick was an abolitionist; Terry, pro-slavery. After he fatally shoots Broderick, Terry is tried, but the case was dismissed.
• J. Pat O'Malley was cast as Stony Wilson in the 1968 episode, "The Secret of the Black Prince", a reference to a mine in Colorado. In the story line, Wilson uses his savings to buy an abandoned mine, but encounters difficulty finding the missing loot he had been told was on the property. He then schemes to get others to do the work. O'Malley played Pete Rohrer, a livery stable owner, in the 1968 episode, "The World's Greatest Swimming Horse", the story of a flim-flam for charity, with Jesse Pearson in the starring role of the charming Frank Ball, the owner of the horse.

P

• Gregg Palmer was cast in thirteen episodes, including the roles of Tom Horn in "Perilous Cargo", as John Brewster in "Perilous Refuge", and as Forty Steps Randall in "Forty Steps to Glory" (all 1959).
• Fess Parker (pre-Davy Crockett) appeared as Curt Morrison, a cowboy/militia-marshal patrolling the New Mexico land rush of 1895, in the 1954 episode, "The Kickapoo Run". Nancy Hale played his romantic interest, Bonnie Carter, whom he meets again after the death of her husband. In the 1961 episode, "A Miracle at Whiskey Gulch", Parker portrayed the Reverend Joel H. Todd, who tries to instill Christian principles in a wild frontier community. Others in the episode were Eddie Firestone as Applejack Jim and George Kennedy, cast as Steamboat Sully, who engage in a brutal fistfight.
• Michael Pate was cast as the Indian Two Horses in the 1962 episode, "Experiment in Fear". In the story line, Two Horses must use psychology when he is captured by fellow Navaho, who were then legally unarmed.
• Hank Patterson made nine appearances, including "The Mule Mail", "Ten Feet of Nothing", and "The Blonde King".
• Julie Parrish appeared as Mariana Jaramilio in the 1967 episode, "Along Came Mariana", the story of the unraveling of the peonage labor system in the New Mexico Territory. Carlos Romero played Jose de la Cruz Romero.
• George Paulsin (born July 12, 1949) made his screen appearance as a youthful Joaquin Miller in the series finale, "Early Candle Lighten". In the story line, a cook at a gold camp in the Arizona Territory faces hanging for stealing nuggets from the miners. His assistant, "Nat Miller", played by Paulsin, thinks he can save his life by bringing the cook's sister from Tucson. It was at this gold camp that Miller perfected his penchant for western poetry.
• Jesse Pearson played Henry Windsor in the 1966 episode, "The Courtship of Carrie Huntington", set in the future Washington State. In the story line, Windsor is hired to take Carrie (Sue Randall) to her sister's wedding after she misses the stagecoach. Henry and Carrie engage in a mock wedding, but on the return trip, Henry wins her over after they are held by Indians, and Carrie nurses a sick child to health. Helen Kleeb plays Carrie's mother, and Dub Taylor was cast in a cameo role as a station agent. In the 1970 episode "The Mezcla Man", Pearson played Jess Ivy, who would propose marriage to a young woman, Sarah Ewing (Karen Carlson), were he on a sound financial footing. He then looks for hidden gold.
• Larry Pennell, cast as detective Roner Maxwell, tries to catch Kate Hanson (Virginia Christine) for smuggling high-grade ore in the 1960 episode, "Queen of the High-Graders". Maxwell falls in love with Hanson's daughter Sarah (Wanda Shannon). Will Wright played mine owner Jim Barker, who hires Maxwell on the mission.
• Gil Peterson and Susan Seaforth Hayes appeared as Jim Otis and his wife, Martha, in the 1967 episode "Solid Foundation". In the story line, Otis has virtually abandoned his dream of finding a gold strike but instead encounters an unexpected bonanza in silver.
• Lee Philips was cast as the compassionate Lieutenant Wood in the 1960 episode, "The White Healer." When a deadly illness breaks out in the Arizona Territory among the Apache, Wood is willing to treat the Indians once Geronimo, played by Joe Bassett (1910–1997), surrenders to the United States Army. Harry Holcombe (1906–1987) was cast as General Nelson Miles.
• Barney Phillips was cast as General Winfield Scott Hancock in the 1962 episode, "The Truth Teller", a study of the Medicine Lodge Indian Peace Treaty. Charles Carlson filled the role of Wild Bill Hickok, long after Guy Madison played Hickock in a weekly syndicated series.
• John M. Pickard appeared ten times, including the role of Sheriff McKittrick in "The Resurrection of Deadwood Dick" (1966) and as rancher Lafe Ellsworth in "The Other Cheek" (1968).
• Phillip Pine played Kit Carson, with Michael Pate as scout Frenchy Godey in the John C. Fremont (Dick Simmons) expedition in the episode "Samaritans, Mountain Style". In the story line, Carson and Gody stop to help a settler in dire straits. Pine, Pate, and Simmons appeared shortly thereafter with Charles Bateman and Don Keefer in another Death Valley Days episode, "The Hero of Apache Pass".
• Judson Pratt appeared twice: "The Left Hand is Damned" (1964) and as a general in "Raid on the San Francisco Mint" (1965).
• Guy Prescott (1914–1998) played Barnaby Taylor who enters a contest to determine "The Longest Beard in the World", a 1956 episode. His friends want him to accent his beard as he runs in California for the United States House of Representatives, but his fiancé Francis Trent (Patricia Donohue) wants him clean shaven. When he loses the contest in Chicago by less than one inch in length, he shaves the beard and is still elected to Congress. However, The Biographical Directory of the American Congress, 1774–1949 does not have information on any Representative Barnaby Taylor.
• William Pullen (1917–2008) was cast as Alex Todd in the 1956 episode, "The Last Letter". In the story line, Todd is a failed prospector with a thriving business delivering the U.S. mail to miners in the Death Valley country who are starving for news from home. Clint Eastwood, before Rawhide, played John Lucas, who does not subscribe to Todd's service and nearly loses $2 million for his failure to do so.
• Denver Pyle was cast seven times, the last of which was in the title role, "The Resurrection of Deadwood Dick" (1966), based on the legendary frontiersman, Deadwood Dick. He also directed several episodes.

R

• John Raitt appeared in a 1960 episode, "The Man on the Road", as Jim Dandy, who befriends a boy whose father has been jailed for horse theft. The episode also stars Mort Mills as Holt.
• Sue Randall appeared six times on the series, including the roles of Virginia Slade in the 1963 episode, "The Man Who Died Twice", with Don Collier as Jack Slade, and as Carrie Huntington in the 1966 segment, 'The Courtship of Carrie Huntington."
• Stuart Randall appeared as Judge Reed in "The Pieces of the Puzzle" (1968).
• Paula Raymond was cast as the Union Army spy Pauline Cushman in the 1964 episode "The Wooing of Perilous Pauline". In the story line, set in Casa Grande, Arizona Territory, where the feisty Miss Cushman was operating a saloon, she is wooed by her future husband, Jere Fryer (Ray Danton), who makes a bet with a friend that he can convince her to marry him within a week.
• Ronald Reagan, among his last acting roles in 1965, played the shrewd banker William Chapman Ralston, with Vaughn Taylor as financier Asbury Harpending, in "Raid on the San Francisco Mint" and Admiral David Farragut, with June Dayton as Mrs. Virginia Farragut, in "The Battle of San Francisco Bay", the story of the 1856 seizure of power by the San Francisco Committee of Vigilance. Reagan was cast too in "No Gun Behind His Badge" as the historical Thomas J. Smith, the marshal of Abilene, Kansas, in 1869 and 1870, in which capacity he tried with fatal results to avoid the use of firearms in the line of duty. (However, as the article on Smith says "The television dramatization does not accurately depict the circumstances of Smith's death and decapitation." In particular Smith was using a gun at the time of the incident that killed him.) On September 30, 1965, Reagan played James B. Hume in "Temporary Warden", the story of a warden at the Nevada State Prison in Carson City. In still another appearance, Reagan played U.S. Senator George Graham Vest, a Democrat from Missouri, in the 1964 episode, "Tribute to the Dog." The episode focuses on Vest's famous defense of the dog as "man's best friend" in a lawsuit filed by a grandfather (Ralph Moody) and his grandson (Danny Flower) against Carter Johnson (Charles Cooper), a property owner who in a rage kills a playful dog trespassing on Johnson's property.
• Rhodes Reason appeared as Peter Jeffries in the 1955 episode, "California's First Ice Man." In the story line, Jeffries turns to the importation of ice from his native Boston, Massachusetts, rather than the exploration of gold, to revive his lost family fortune. He finds Sacramento under the grip of Phineas Colby (I. Stanford Jolley) while he is courting Colby's niece, Laura Colby (Donna Drew), who acts as a nurse seeking ice to relieve suffering of her patients in the heat of summer.
• Tommy Rettig was cast in the 1962 episode "Davy's Friends" as Joel Walter Robison, a fighter for Texas independence. In the story line, Robison, called a "friend" of Davy Crockett, is sent on a diversion but quickly shows his military ability and is made a first lieutenant by Sam Houston (Stephen Chase). Russell Johnson was cast as Sergeant Tate. After meeting Sam Houston, in April 1836, Robison decides to settle in the capital city of Austin. Years later, Robison was elected to the Texas House of Representatives. Abel Franco (1922–2000) played the captured General Antonio López de Santa Anna.
• Paul Richards appeared as Cash Powers in the 1959 segment, "Somewhere Beyond the Vultures". In 1962, he was cast as Dr. Max Richter in the episode, "Bloodline". In the story line, Dr. Richter seeks to use blood transfusions to save lives of his patients.
• Host Dale Robertson was cast as the Irish-American postmaster Jack Reardon, based in the now ghost town of Shermantown, Nevada, in the 1970 episode, "The Biggest Little Post Office in the World". A postal inspector, Wesley Hull (Walter Brooke), comes to Shermantown to determine how Reardson can sell $1,500 worth of stamps per month, when the town has only three hundred residents, many of whom are illiterate. As the episode concludes, Reardon decides to move to San Francisco to become a lawyer.
• Wayne Rogers and Harry Lauter played George and Henry Schmidtlein in the 1960 episode, "Mission to the Mountains". While seeding mountain streams with trout, the Schmidtleins encounter a suspicious gold prospector named Crandel (John Hoyt) and his abused daughter. Wayne Rogers also played the historical General Richard Henry Pratt in the 1965 episode, "The Journey", the story of two different views on how to treat Native Americans.
• Gilbert Roland played Dom Pedro II, the emperor of Brazil, who in 1876 gets off his train to stretch his legs and is stranded near San Francisco. He comes across a widow (Patricia Huston) with a son (Butch Patrick) and a daughter (Andrea Darvi). The woman doubts his story, but her daughter is charmed by his wit and wisdom.
• Caesar Romero played Agustin Olvera in the 1959 episode, "Olvera".
• Ned Romero was cast as a priest, Father de la Cuesta, in the 1970 episode "A Gift from Father Tapis". Father de la Cuesta has replaced the deceased Father Tapis and is curious why the padre ordered a hand organ for the mission. The priest refuses to leave when Joaquin and his renegades become a threat. They use the church organ to save the day.
• Marion Ross was cast as Martha Sayles in the 1961 episode, "Death Ride." Robert Rockwell played lawyer William Thorne, who defends Martha from the threat of mob violence and bigotry in an Arizona town.
• Bing Russell appeared as Scragg in the 1959 episode, "Indian Emily", the story of an Apache young woman, played by Jolene Brand, who died while warning Fort Davis of impending Apache attack.
• Bryan Russell (1952-2016) was cast as a four-year-old future Army General Douglas MacArthur in the 1959 episode, "The Little Trooper", set at Fort Selden, New Mexico Territory, where Douglas' father, then Captain and later General Arthur MacArthur, Jr. (Tom Palmer) (1912-1997), was stationed in the mid-1880s as the fort commander. The story focuses on Trooper Norkul (Leonard Bremen) (1915-1986), who takes a protective interest in young Douglas. Mary Munday was cast as Douglas' mother, Mary.

S

• William Schallert appeared eight times on the series. In 1955, he portrayed American Civil War General Jesse Lee Reno in the episode "Reno". In the story line, two veterans of the Mexican War who served under Reno (played by Frank Griffin and Stanley Clements), honor him with the naming of the second-largest city in Nevada.He played Confederate terrorist Ellis Higby in "Hang em High", both episodes in 1959. Schallert appeared as Sam Clemens in the 1962 Death Valley Days episode, "The $275,000 Sack of Flour," with James Best as Ruel Gridley.
• Ken Scott was cast in the 1963 episode, "The Melancholy Gun", as Johnny Ringo, a gunslinger who despite his mysterious past seeks to lead a more respectable life. However, many want to make their reputations by challenging Ringo's shooting skills. Elizabeth MacRae was cast as his romantic interest, Myra Engles . Denver Pyle played a physician Scott also played Virgil Earp in a 1964 episode, "Trial at Belle's Springs." In that story line, Earp goes undercover to break a robbery ring run by Belle Wilgus (Lynn Bari). The gang is suspicious when Virgil, using the name "Martin", arrives at their hideout, but he soon finds the information he needs. Patricia Huston (1929–1995) played Marie.
• Harry Shannon was cast as frontier scout Jim Bridger in the 1958 episode, "Old Gabe," referring to a nickname of Bridger's. Ron Hagerthy played Bridger's grown son, Felix. In the story line, the aging Bridger returns home to find his wife has died in childbirth, and Felix is trying to keep their farm despite an unpaid mortgage. Despite his failing eyesight, Bridger sets forth on a last scouting expedition to make peace with the Sioux and thereby raise funds to retire the mortgage. Roy Engel played Colonel Henry B. Carrington.
• Alex Sharp (1921–2008) was cast as Sheriff Pat Garrett in the 1956 episode, "Pat Garrett's Side of It", referring to the shooting death in New Mexico Territory of the outlaw Billy the Kid, played by Joel Collins. In the story line, Garrett captures The Kid, who escapes, and then Garrett comes after him at the farmhouse of Pedro Menard "Pete" Maxwell, the father of The Kid's girlfriend. Mack Williams (1907–1965) played General Lew Wallace, and Tyler McVey was cast as cattle baron John Chisum. In addition, Sharp appeared as Juan Flaco, anglicized to John Brown, in the 1957 segment, "California's Paul Revere." When the Mexican–American War broke out in 1846, enemy Mexican forces besieged an American garrison in Los Angeles under Lieutenant Gillespie (Don C. Harvey). Calling for needed reinforcements, Gillespie sends Brown on what turned out to be a four-day ride to Stockton, then San Francisco, to warn of impending doom and obtain the transport of troops by sea. The ride saved Los Angeles from Mexican occupation.
• Karen Sharpe played Linda in the 1953 episode, "Claim Jumpin' Jennie", opposite Irene Burton as Jennie and Wallace Ford as Buck Hansen (1953).
• Richard Simmons played W. Frank Stewart, a silver mining operator who served from 1876 to 1880 as a Nevada state senator for Virginia City (Storey County), in the 1969 episode entitled, "How to Beat a Badman". In the story line, Stewart is determined to gain at a bargain price a silver claim being worked by two young former outlaws. Simmons also played the historical John C. Fremont in the 1966 episode, "Samaritans, Mountain Style." In that story line, Fremont maps a trail to the American West, but his scouts, Kit Carson (Phillip Pine) and Frenchy Godey (Michael Pate) come across a man who has lost everything in an Indian raid. They decide to help the man before resuming their jobs Don Keefer played a newspaperman, Gilpin.
• Tom Skerritt was cast in five episodes, as a youthful Emmett Dalton in "Three Minutes to Eternity" (1963), the story of the double 1892 bank robberies in Coffeyville, Kansas, with Forrest Tucker as Bob Dalton and Jim Davis as Grat Dalton; as Dennis Driscoll in "Honor the Name Dennis Driscoll" (1964); as Patrick Hogan in "The Book" (1965), the story of a young gambler who wins a small fortune at the roulette wheel at a saloon in Calico in San Bernardino, California, with the help of a Chinese friend, Wong Lee (George Takei). The two soon meet a speedy demise; as a young Roy Bean in "A Sense of Justice" (1966), with Tris Coffin as his older brother Joshua Bean, set in San Diego, where Joshua was the founding mayor, and as Mark Twain in "Ten Day Millionaires" (1968).
• Hal Smith played the character John Wilson in the 1967 episode "The Man Who Didn't Want Gold".
• William Smith was cast as John Richard Parker, brother of Cynthia Ann Parker, both taken hostage in Texas by the Comanche, in the 1969 episode "The Understanding". In the story line, Parker contracts the plague, is left for dead by his fellow Comanche warriors, and is rescued by his future wife, Yolanda (Emily Banks), with whom he moves to her native Mexico. Smith also played the outlaw turned sheriff, Henry Newton Brown, a former associate of Billy the Kid, in the 1969 episode "A Restless Man".
• Julie Sommars played Roman Catholic Sister Blandina Segale in the 1966 episode "The Fastest Nun in the West". In the story line, Blandina seeks justice for a killer, despite intense monied pressure by George Burnet Michael Constantine for his lynching. Don Haggerty was cast as Sheriff Wheeler.
• Arthur Space was cast as failed gold prospector Herb Phinney in the 1954 episode, "The Rainbow Chaser". Kay Stewart (1919-2002) played Herb's longsuffering wife, Lucretia, who takes over his job as a store clerk to make ends meet. When Herb begins to sit around the house all day with no attempt at working, Lucretia stakes him on another gold search just to be rid of him. Jimmy Hawkins played one of their two sons. Apparently, Herb never found any gold and dropped all contact with his family thereafter. Space was subsequently cast as Ben Hudson in the 1959 episode, "Hang 'Em High", the story of the laying of the transcontinental telegraph across the western United States at the beginning of the American Civil War.
• Fay Spain played Calamity Jane, with Rhodes Reason as Wild Bill Hickok, in the 1966 episode "A Calamity Called Jane". The episode centers upon Calamity joining Hickok's fledgling Wild West show. It ends with Hickok's assassination by Jack McCall in a saloon in Deadwood, Dakota Territory.

T

• Robert Tafur (1915–2005), Tom Hernández, and Ernestine Barrier are cast as Antonio Fernandez, Young Antonio, and Old Isabella, respectively, in the episode "The Valencia Cake". In the story line, a Spanish land-grant family faces the loss of its estate and one million acres of land in the New Mexico Territory unless the original deed granting them ownership can be found. Oddly, the deed turns up at the bottom of a cake baked by the staff.
• Gloria Talbott appeared as Mary Kileen in the 1961 episode, the "Queen of Spades", directed by Darren McGavin. In the story line, Mary preys upon men whose insecurity she uses to get them to fight over her. After one of the men is killed, Mary's blood-lust is further emboldened as she schemes for a gunfight between Billy Madsen (L. Q. Jones) and Billy Leslie (Tom Drake). In a 1965 episode "Kate Melville and the Law", Talbott played Kate Melville, a temporary woman sheriff and the daughter of Sheriff Will Melville (Dick Foran), who clashes with a Judge Lander (Richard Anderson) over courtroom fairness and frontier justice.
• William Tannen played the historical Ike Clanton in the 1964 episode "After the OK Corral", with Jim Davis as Wyatt Earp. Tannen previously played deputy Hal Norton on the ABC/Desilu series, The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp, with Hugh O'Brian in the title role of Marshal Wyatt Earp.
• Buck Taylor, already cast as Newly O'Brien on Gunsmoke, played a lumberjack, Will Zane, in the 1969 episode, "The Taming of Trudy Bell," with Valerie DeCamp as Trudy, the daughter of Zane's boss. When Zane spanks Trudy at a social gathering for her conceit, he expects to lose his job. Robert Anderson (1920–1996), played Trudy's father, H. J. Bell.
• Lorna Thayer was cast as Jessie Benton Frémont, loyal wife of John C. Fremont (Roy Engel), in the 1960 episode, "The Gentle Sword". In the story line, the Frémonts are in California during the gold rush. The couple becomes involved in a mining claim dispute; Mrs. Frémont stares down organized claim jumpers.
• Marshall Thompson was cast in the 1964 episode, "The Streets of El Paso", as Mayor Ben Dowell, who proposes the sale of main street in El Paso, Texas, to finance a water system.
• Kenneth Tobey was cast as Colonel Lake in the 1960 episode, "The Deserters". Lake holds the fate of five deserters from the Union Army in the West in his hands, and he appears inclined to order their deaths by a firing squad.
• Regis Toomey was cast as Gus Lammerson in the 1961 episode, "The Holdup-Proof Safe." Lammerson owns a store which contains a safe prematurely declared holdup-proof. Judson Pratt appeared as Sheriff Griswold.
• Harry Townes played Edwin Booth, brother of John Wilkes Booth, in the 1960 episode "His Brother's Keeper." Edwin Booth tries to stage a play in Downieville, California, six months after Lincoln's assassination and encounters opposition from townspeople, such as Hite Rogan (Jack Mather). Alan Baxter and Don Grady, as Jeb and Calvin Hayes, play father/son protectors of Booth.

V to Y

• Victoria Vetri played Sacajawea in the 1967 episode, "The Girl Who Walked the West". Victor French was cast as her husband, Toussaint Charbonneau, Dick Simmons as Meriwether Lewis, and Don Matheson as William Clark.
• John Vivyan guest starred as Jeremy Whitlock in the 1962 episode, "Showdown at Kamaaina Flats", set in the Hawaiian Mountains. In the story line, Whitlock devises a scheme to defy his captain (Lane Bradford), who has ordered Whitlock to retrieve native peoples as slaves. Earlier, Vivyan played Ed Taylor in the 1961 segment, "The Lady Was an M.D.", with Yvonne DeCarlo in the title role.
• Peter Walker (born 1927) was cast as Kit Carson, Gardner McKay as the villainous Pierre Shunar, and Iron Eyes Cody as a trapper in the 1958 episode, "The Big Rendezvous", a reference to the Rendezvous, an annual gathering of fur traders, trappers, and friendly Indians held in what is now Utah, the first of such reunions in 1825. Laurie Carroll (born 1933) was cast as the young Indian woman, Waa-Nibe, for whom Carson is smitten.
• Alan Wells (1926–2008) portrayed Tom Powell in the 1955 episode, "The Seventh Day". In the story line, a wagon train splits in two when Powell, the captain, refuses to travel on Sundays. Frank Hitchcock (Michael Moore) leads the rival group which includes Powell's love interest, Mary Ann Jessup (Barbara Lang). The wagon train reunites after Powell proves that by resting on Sundays, which refreshed both the settlers and the animals, the party could still travel as far in six days as in seven.
• Paul Wexler played Clem Scobie, a war hero, in the 1955 episode, "The Homeliest Man in Nevada." In the story line, Clem's looks at first discourage Mona Sherman (Patricia Joiner), who came to Nevada from Emporia, Kansas, from accepting his romantic gestures. When Clem is badly burned in a mining explosion, however, Mona rushes to his side and confesses her love for him.
• Dennis Whitcomb (born 1941), played a young struggling author Jack London in the 1968 episode, "Prince of the Oyster Pirates". In the story line, London buys an oyster boat and then rescues a saloon girl, Mamie (Jane Zachary), from the clutches of French Frank (Ken Mayer) (1918-1985), the man who sold him the boat.
• Grace Lee Whitney played Nellie Cashman in the 1969 episode, "The Angel of Tombstone". In the story line, Cashman and several men from Tombstone, Arizona, travel to Baja California in search of gold found by a Mexican prospector. On reaching the site, Cashman learns how a Catholic mission has been quietly financing its charitable work. Gregg Barton, Tris Coffin, and Joaquin Martinez also had roles in this episode.
• Peter Whitney was cast in the 1961 episode, "Who's Fer Divide?", as trapper Joseph Meek, who campaigns for the annexation of Oregon Territory. Whitney was cast as "Peter the Hunter", a mountain man, in the semi-comedic 1964 episode of the same name. In the story line, Peter has three daughters, the older of whom, Tulie (Julie Sommars), is smitten with Jim Beaumont (Anthony Costello) (1938–1983), a greenhorn from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, who has failed at gold mining. Peter puts aside his reservations to allow the marriage. Whitney played Judge Roy Bean in the 1965 Death Valley Days episode, "A Picture of a Lady", with Francine York as Lillie Langtry and Paul Fix as Bean's friend, Dr. Louis Lathrop. In the story line, the ailing Judge Bean idolizes Lillie's portrait. She visited Langtry, Texas, which Bean claimed to have named in her honor, but only after the judge's death.
• Robert J. Wilke was cast as the courageous but aging Sheriff Tom McBain in the episode "Brute Angel". In the story line McBain must arrest the young cut-throat Sam Bolt (Sherwood Price) and transport him for trial for murder in Denver. McBain prays for divine intervention; his friend Pony Cragin (Jim Davis) hears the prayer and removes bullets from Bolt's gun prior to the arrest attempt. Jean Engstrom is cast as McBain's wife, Esther.
• Jean Willes played Amelia Monk in the 1967 episode, "Siege at Amelia's Kitchen", set in the Arizona Territory of the late 19th century. In the story line, Amelia must adjust to a teenaged stepson, Warren Monk (Dennis Oliveri), son of her husband, Titus Monk (George D. Wallace), particularly during an attack by rogue Indians on their ranch.
• Don Wilson, the announcer for Jack Benny, appeared as a flim-flam preacher in the 1959 episode, "Gates Ajar Morgan". In the story line, Morgan promotes a false religious philosophy based on the novel The Gates Ajar. He must confess the sham to save his friend and benefactor from a lynch mob. The episode also features Chris Alcaide and Sue Randall.
• Michael Witney was cast as Wild Bill Hickok in the 1965 episode, "No Gun Behind His Badge", with host Ronald Reagan playing Thomas J. "Bear River" Smith, the sheriff of Abilene, Kansas.
• Howard Wright (1896-1990) was cast in the 1959 episode, "Price of a Passport", as the historical fur trapper and Kentucky native, Sylvester Pattie (1782-1828), the first American to be buried in California. Donald Barton (1925-2002) played his son, James Ohio Pattie. In the story line, the Patties arrive in California to trap but are ordered to jail by a superstitious governor, played by Rodolfo Hoyos Jr. The character Carlotta (Arianne Ulmer) befriends them in jail. Ultimately, their medical knowledge benefits the community during an epidemic.
• Than Wyenn played storekeeper Isaacs (later Isaac Nogales) in the 1959 episode, "The Birth of a Town".
• Patrice Wymore appeared as Fay Morgan in "Forty Steps to Glory" (1959).
• H. M. Wynant was cast as lieutenant (later General) Philip Sheridan in the 1961 episode, "The Red Petticoat," which Sheridan used as a symbol of the racist tendencies of the respective peoples Sheridan and his blood brother/scout Kahlu (Allan Jaffe) (1928-1989) had to fight in order to bring peace and prosperity to the Pacific northwest that was under Sheridan's protection.
• Alan Young played John Batterson Stetson in the 1962 episode, "The Hat That Won the West", with Don Haggerty and Lee Van Cleef in supporting roles. Stetson comes West for health reasons. After an avalanche ruins a year's worth of work, hs ability to make his own hats promises him a prosperous future.
• Tony Young played Corbin in "Phanton Procession" (1963).
• Victor Sen Yung, who played Hop Sing, the ranch cook on Bonanza, was cast as the compassionate Chinese restaurant owner, Quong Kee, in Tombstone, Arizona, in the 1957 episode, "Quong Kee". In the story line, an aging Quong Kee recalls how in 1881 he brought together Art Gresham (Walter Kelley) and his mother, played by Mary Newton, both of Boston, with the saloon musician Ann Bailey (Eugenia Paul), who after a topsy turvy romance became Mrs. Art Gresham.
• Robert Yuro played the outlaw Curly Bill Brocius in the episode "A Mule ... Like the Army's Mule" (October 5, 1968). Also appearing in this episode are Sam Melville as Army Lt. Jason Beal and Luke Halpin as the young outlaw Sandy King, who was befriended by Beal. John Pickard played Baldy Johnson. Yuro played the Texas gunfighter King Fisher in the 1970 episode "King of the Uvalde Road", with Dale Robertson as host and actor in the role of "Harry". In the story line, Fisher tries to keep the mail from being delivered to Uvalde from San Antonio. In another 1970 episode, "Pioneer Pluck", Yuro is cast as ranch hand Wynn Kinkead, a man with a criminal record, who vows revenge when his love interest, Anabelle Colvin (Karen Carlson), is found to be flirting with him while she waits on another suitor, Frank Harris (Roger Ewing), to propose to her.

DVD releases

Shout! Factory (on behalf of Element 5 Media LLC and Rio Tinto), has released the first two seasons on DVD in Region 1. Both seasons were released as Walmart exclusives. The third season was released on March 21, 2017 The thirteenth season was released on July 31, 2017 as a Walmart exclusive. Then, on Tuesday, October 3, 2017 the title "went wide" with a general retail release. The fourteenth season was released on January 2, 2018.

DVD Name	Ep #	Release Date
The Complete First Season	18	March 29, 2016
The Complete Second Season	18	July 12, 2016
The Complete Third Season	18	March 21, 2017
The Complete Thirteenth Season	26	October 3, 2017
The Complete Fourteenth Season	26	January 2, 2018

Restoration

Paul Korver's company Cinelicious in Hollywood was part of the restoration of the TV series Death Valley Days, restoring 458 half-hour film episodes. Cinelicious worked with US Borax Film Archives and Rio Tinto Group, in preserving the TV series. The 16mm, and 35 mm film of Death Valley Days was scanned at 4K resolution for film preservation on a Scanity starting in 2013.

Rebroadcasts

Some episodes of the series were re-run with different sponsorship under the title The Pioneers.

The restored TV series is currently broadcast on the Grit network in the United States.

Two episodes of Death Valley Days are shown weekdays beginning at 6:35 p.m. Eastern on the Encore Westerns Channel.

Awards and nominations

Year	Award	Result	Category	Recipient
1955	Emmy Award	Nominated	Best Western or Adventure Series	-
1961	Western Heritage Awards	Won	Best Factual Television Program	Ruth Woodman and Nat Perrin (For episode "The Great Lounsberry Scoop")

In the 1955–1956 season, NBC offered Frontier, an anthology Western series similar to Death Valley Days hosted by Walter Coy. Though Frontier, a springboard for the Western actor Jack Elam, was nominated for an Emmy Award, it was cancelled after a single season.

See also

• Born in East L.A. (song), for which the show is a plot point

References

• Tim Brooks & Earle Marsh, The Complete Directory to Prime Time Network and Cable TV Shows

External links

• Death Valley Days Official Website
• Death Valley Days at IMDb
• Template:Tv.com show
• Death Valley Days, free downloads at the Internet Archive
• Death Valley Days at CVTA