This Western Anthology Series Was One of the First on Network Television

Not all Westerns are created equal, and in the case of Death Valley Days, that’s most certainly true. The first true Western anthology series, Death Valley Days (not to be confused with the American Horror Story season) continued to celebrate Old West ideals and tradition throughout its impressive 18 seasons in syndication, and it never gave up the fight. Many credit this anthology series with launching the genre into television in the first place, and while there were certainly other Western TV shows before 1952 (such as Hopalong Cassidy), there weren’t many — and there certainly weren’t any other Western anthologies out there. This program was revolutionary in more ways than one, and after nearly 50 years off the air, it’s time someone finally stands up and celebrates this anthology series. Here’s to you, Death Valley Days!

‘Death Valley Days’ Began on Radio Before Jumping to Television

When Death Valley Days first began, it had no television aspirations whatsoever. Conceived as a living, breathing advertisement for the Pacific Borax Company’s 20 Mule Team Borax (which was cleverly incorporated into many of the early episodes), Death Valley Days was penned entirely by Ruth Cornwall Woodman, a copywriter for McCann Erickson who wrote over 700 scripts for the original radio series. Woodman traveled all over the American Southwest while writing for the radio program, and, over her time writing for the series, became one of the most authoritative voices on Death Valley history, legend, and other folklore. Death Valley itself was known as a major source of Borax, so the name was only natural. Woodman traveled all around the deserted areas of Utah, Nevada, Arizona, and California, sometimes for months, collecting these stories for future use. She often brought her husband and children in the summers, which became a yearly pilgrimage for their family.

In total, the radio program ran on all three big radio networks (ABC, NBC, CBS) at one point or another under the Death Valley Days moniker from 1930 until 1945. After that, it became known as Death Valley Sheriff for several years until it was simply re-titled, The Sheriff. The radio anthology ended officially in 1951, but by then the folks over at the Pacific Coast Borax Co. had a different target medium in mind: television. In 1952, Woodman launched Death Valley Days, the television anthology, which initially boasted Stanley Andrews as the show’s trademark “Old Ranger.” Down the line, everyone from pre-Governor of California/U.S. President Ronald Reagan and Robert Taylor (not to be confused with the star of Longmire) to Dale Robertson and even Merle Haggard hosted the program. Woodman stayed on for the first five years, writing each episode herself before other writers were brought in to lighten the load in the sixth season. Likewise, Stuart E. McGowan directed every episode of the first seven seasons before other directors were brought in to help.

After over a thousand episodes of Death Valley Days, between radio and television, Woodman took a step back and served the program only as the show’s story editor. Eventually, she retired from that altogether, and died in April 1970, right around the time the final episodes of Death Valley Days aired. The program would continue to be syndicated until 1975, often via reruns under different titles (and with new hosts), such as Call of the West, Frontier Adventure, The Pioneers, and Western Star Theater. These reruns were often re-edited from their original versions, oftentimes to remove direct connections to the Pacific Coast Borax Co. Though most sources, such as IMDb, state there are only 452 episodes of the program, it’s worth noting that The Complete Directory to Prime Time Network and Cable TV Shows, 1946-Present by Tim Brooks and Earle F. Marsh claims that there are 558 produced episodes, though that’s likely due to the program’s extended reach via syndication/re-branding.

This Western Series Paved the Way for Modern Anthologies

As far as the way the show was structured, well, Death Valley Days was often very focused on the story. Given its status as an anthology, each episode followed a new cast of characters on a new set of adventures. This meant that we could be following a Union lieutenant in one episode and a group of homesteaders in the next. Ruth Cornwall Woodman placed her emphasis on historical accuracy when it came to both the radio and television productions, and that often meant that the story was above all else. While some famous Hollywood stars appeared in Death Valley Days (though oftentimes the hosts were more notable), it was the show’s historical accuracy that made it special. According to Brooks and Marsh, when Woodman — who claimed every episode was based in clear, Western fact — was asked her thoughts about the program’s staying power, she noted that “Sometimes, it seems it will go on forever.”

Though Death Valley Days didn’t live forever, the show was on the forefront of the television anthology genre. Despite the name, after quite a few years of telling stories set only within the Death Valley region of the southwest (and usually only in the late 1800s), Death Valley Days opened the door to Western tales outside the titular region. Sometimes, these new stories even dovetailed into the 21st century. It’s worth noting too that the show was willing to change with the times. While Death Valley Days started on the radio, it eventually transitioned to television. Likewise, while the show first began airing in black-and-white, by the 13th season (which began in 1964), the entirety of the series was filmed in beautiful color.

Death Valley Days was so successful that there’s no doubt its popularity helped inspire other Western television programs. Not long after Death Valley Days took flight, shows like Gunsmoke, Bonanza, The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp, and Have Gun-Will Travel began appearing, and soon the golden age of Western television was born. This isn’t to say that Death Valley Days is directly responsible, but it’s worth noting that this long-running anthology series (which first found an audience on radio) predated the massive wave of Western content that began appearing throughout television. Unlike most of these shows, Death Valley Days was strictly a syndicated series and remained so throughout its entire 18-year run on television.

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‘Death Valley Days’ Was One of the Last Classic Western TV Shows on Air

By the time new episodes of Death Valley Days stopped being produced in the early 1970s, it became clear that the wave of Westerns that populated television from the mid-1950s through the 1960s was about to be over. The rural purge had already taken out many of the remaining “Middle America”-centric shows that ran seamlessly on network television, and, aside from reruns under different names, Death Valley Days was next on the chopping block. Ruth Cornwall Woodman died in April 1970, and her most notable work followed her. Again, the series continued under titles such as Frontier Adventure or The Pioneers, but the last recorded broadcast of Death Valley Days was on April 24, 1970. Few television Westerns would live into the ’70s, with Bonanza ending in 1973, followed by Gunsmoke in 1975.

For a cumulative 40 years, Ruth Cornwall Woodman delighted with Old West tales of love, laughter, survival, and hardship that made the late 1800s feel more real to audiences than the world they lived in themselves. Though Death Valley Days was not the most famous of all Western productions,through all of its iterations it was certainly the longest-running, and garnered an impressive following that made the program last much longer than likely anticipated. No doubt, the folks at Borax, Inc. were happy with the results, and many today have turned back the clocks to revisit this series for themselves. You never knew quite what you were going to get with an episode of Death Valley Days, but one thing we always did know was that it would be a Western.

Death ValleyDays is available to stream on Amazon Prime Video in the U.S.

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