RUSC
Old-time radio, beautifully kept · established 1999
← Home
Westerns

Tales of the Texas Rangers

1950–1952 · 91 episodes · 363 listens

Tales of the Texas Rangers is a 20th century Western old-time radio and television police procedural drama which originally aired on NBC Radio from 1950 to 1952 and later on CBS Television from 1955 to 1958.

Film star Joel McCrea voiced the radio version as the fictitious Texas Ranger Jace Pearson, who uses the latest scientific techniques to identify criminals. His faithful horse, Charcoal (or “Charky”), helps Pearson to track down the culprits. The radio shows, some of which are available on the Internet, are reenactments of actual Texas Ranger cases.

The Stars

On radio, Joel McCrea’s Pearson often worked by request with a local sheriff’s office or police department.

Supporting cast included Tony Barrett, Ken Christy, Ed Begley, Herb Vigran, Peggy Webber, Barney Phillips, Lurene Tuttle.

Announcer was Hal Gibney.

Producer - Director was Stacy Keach.

Key Dates

  • Tales of the Texas Rangers originally aired on NBC Radio from July 8th, 1950.
  • Final episode was on September 14th,1952.

Other Information

The television version,  aired on CBS from 1955 to 1958 and was produced and also directed for several episodes by Stacy Keach, Sr. It was sponsored for part of its run by Wheaties cereal. Captain Manuel T. “Lone Wolf” Gonzaullas, who was said to have killed thirty-one men during his 30-year career as a Texas Ranger, was the consultant for the television series, as he had been for the earlier radio series. The television version was filmed by Screen Gems.

During the opening and closing credits of the television series, the actors march toward the camera as an off-screen men’s chorus sings the theme song, “These Are Tales of Texas Rangers”, to the tune of “The Eyes of Texas Are Upon You” (Theme for the radio series) and “I’ve Been Working on the Railroad”.

The radio series used contemporary cases and modern detective methods to solve crimes; it was a procedural drama, in many ways Jack Webb’s Dragnet with a Western flavor. The television version had some episodes set in the 1950s, comparable in some ways to Rod Cameron’s syndicated series, State Trooper.

Other episodes were set in the 19th century in a traditional Western genre. In each case, Parker and Lauter were involved with chases and shoot-outs.

The series was adapted into a comic book distributed by Dell Comics and drawn by Dan Spiegle. It also inspired Willy Vandersteen’s Suske en Wiske album De Texasrakkers.

Cast & Crew

JJoel McCreaActorEEd BegleyActorVVirginia GreggActorPParley BaerActorWWilms HerbertActorBBarney PhillipsActorLLurene TuttleActorHHerb VigranActorKKen ChristyActorBBill JohnstoneActorHHal GibneyAnnouncerJJoel MurcottWriterMMonty FraserSStacy Keach, SrDirector · ProducerWWheatiesRReed HadleyActorTTony BarrettActorBByron KaneActorPPeggy WebberActorJJoe DuValActorFFrank MartinActor

Ratings & reviews

Loading reviews…

Episodes

Apr 1, 1951 · 30:00
It is 11:00pm a Saturday night in January 1933 as sheriff Russ Morton drives his car to the end of the well lighted…
Apr 13, 1952 · 29:05
It is shortly past ten o' clock on a Wednesday night in July 1936. Six miles outside the town of Cambridge in east…
Apr 15, 1951 · 30:20
It is 2:00pm the afternoon of October 17th 1926. Captain Clint Stansen of Texas Ranger Company B is seated in his…
Apr 20, 1952 · 28:49
It is 3am on October 3rd 1945 and in the town of Eaglerock, Texas, Sheriff Glen Minton is awakened by an urgent…
Apr 22, 1951 · 29:08
When a young family all die a post mortem shows that they had died of botulism from contaminated canned sausage meat.…
Apr 27, 1952 · 28:46
It is just before noon on a hot day in August 1940. In the Big Bend country of Texas, forty miles north east of the…
Apr 6, 1952 · 29:02
It is 4:30am on the morning of June 6th 1943. About 12 miles east of Humbole, Texas an army troop train draws westwards…
Apr 8, 1951 · 29:58
It is 7:00pm September 14th 1950. Joe Crayger has been drafted and is packing a suitcase to report to army duty when…
Aug 10, 1952 · 25:35
“It is a Thursday night in July, 1931. A local passenger train speeds through the rocky country of West Texas. While…
Aug 12, 1950 · 29:36
Saturday night, June 5th 1948, time, 10pm. On a small ranch ten miles south of Cranston Irwin County, Texas Milton…
Aug 17, 1952 · 30:17
It is 8 o’clock on the morning of Thursday July 4th 1946. Lee Gaynor has gone round to his friend’s house to discover…
Aug 19, 1950 · 28:53
It is shortly after 9 am on the Tuesday after Labour Day 1946. Two men in a late model black sedan cruise slowly along…
Aug 24, 1952 · 30:12
A man and a woman on a horse ride discover a nineteen-year-old boy injured and hysterical on a road. The boy’s parents…
Aug 26, 1950 · 28:47
It is August 4th 1948. Maurice Buckland and his son Dave are driving across their ranch in a jeep dropping off salt…
Aug 3, 1952 · 30:13
Mrs Winford is on the phone to her bank when the teller Mr Vance has to put her on hold while he attends a customer.…
Aug 31, 1952 · 30:00
A woman is found in some woodland battered and beaten to death. There are two suspects, her husband who never reported…
Aug 5, 1950 · 29:29
At 11.30 on the night of May 22nd 1947 a Stock Home Ranch based in the middle of county Carson Texas was darkened for…
Dec 10, 1950 · 28:46
It is 7:30 on a simmering hot night, August 14th 1945. In a small Texas town not far from Corpus Christie Joe Barry is…
Dec 16, 1951 · 29:16
Joe and Whitey jump aboard a freight train in the dead of the night and discover a dead body on board. Whitey wants to…
Dec 2, 1951 · 28:56
It took Sheriff Ross less than fifteen minutes to get to get to the Deneen farm but Mrs Deneen and her four-month-old…
Dec 23, 1951 · 30:00
It is 4pm on the afternoon of December 25th 1940 in the small West Texas town of Rockfield. In his office Dr Hartley…
Dec 24, 1950 · 29:07
It is 2:00pm December 21st, four days before Christmas 1931. On a city Street corner in North Texas a man dressed as…
Dec 3, 1950 · 28:47
It is 4:47pm in the afternoon of October 29th 1927. Liz Ferris, a chambermaid at the Hotel Alamo in the town of Linpear…
Dec 30, 1951 · 30:00
It is 10:35 pm, April 16th 1947. A black coupe is driving west on a deserted highway 20 miles from San Antonia, Texas.…
Dec 31, 1950 · 28:32
It is 6:45pm October 26th 1939. Frank Wayland is at home when his brother Jeff arrives home after cutting his trip away…
Dec 9, 1951 · 29:00
Tom Peters and his wife has just finished helping with the building of a new community hall at the church and are on…
Feb 10, 1952 · 28:50
It is shortly after dawn on the morning of April 4th 1947. Carter is driving away from his small ranch in Texas when…
Feb 11, 1951 · 24:43
Its Sunday morning and the Hallick family are getting ready for church. Young Robert is late up as he was out at the…
Feb 17, 1952 · 28:03
It is seven-thirty on the night of April 22nd 1935. In a shack in a poor section of Lundy, and eastern Texas town. A…
Feb 18, 1951 · 25:51
It is 6.30pm March 13th, 1944 at the ranch house of Judd Wilkins. It is raining heavily as Judd and Albert Briggs from…
Feb 24, 1952 · 29:25
Texas Ranger Jace Pearson helps solve a case where a man and his teenage brother are involved in a car racket when a…
Feb 25, 1951 · 30:17
The two colleagues were delivering a cargo of car radios valued at $39,000 when their truck is sent on a detour to a…
Feb 3, 1952 · 28:47
It is 9:30pm on July 23rd 1936. The night is sticky hot and in the dimly lit dressing room of a border town fight…
Feb 4, 1951 · 29:54
It is mid afternoon September 7th 1938. Two loggers employed by the Gulf Lumber Company are marking timber near a…
Jan 13, 1952 · 25:14
It is ten o’clock on the evening of January 24th, 1950. A bitter wind whips through the north Texas town of Bolton. As…
Jan 14, 1951 · 29:33
It is 11.30 pm on the night of January 26th 1947 at the ranch house of Chester Gentry in Reeves County Texas when his…
Jan 20, 1952 · 29:08
It is 7:30 on a Saturday evening in July 1929. For a week an oppressive blanket of heat and dust has surrounded the…
Jan 21, 1951 · 29:51
It is a moonless midnight September 16th 1947. A truck without lights is parked in a cultivated field several mile s…
Jan 27, 1952 · 29:07
It is 9:20pm on the evening of May 5th 1937. Sixteen miles north of Durham, Texas, rancher Jim Fuller and his wife,…
Jan 6, 1952 · 30:05
A gang of three men are planning on kidnapping the son of John Warren a retired wealthy oilman. However one of the men…
Jan 7, 1951 · 29:41
It is shortly before midnight August 27th 1938 at the Santa Fe freight yards in Texas. A deadhead freight hauling…
Jul 13, 1952 · 29:30
Desser and Foli only have another six months of time to do in jail but Foli decides he’s not spending another day in…
Jul 15, 1950 · 28:06
It is January 15th 1950, the time 6:28 pm. A freight train just outside of a West Texas town gains speed and rolls…
Jul 20, 1952 · 29:00
A highway employee cutting grass along the road 10 miles south of Cody, Texas found the body of a man lying in a ditch…
Jul 22, 1950 · 29:08
Shortly after midnight on October 4 last, a late model blue sedan came to a stop on a highway leading southwest out of…
Jul 27, 1952 · 22:58
Tom Baker notified the sheriff’s office of the attempted robbery and killing at his diner. The sheriff could not be…
Jul 29, 1950 · 29:41
At nine o’clock on the evening of May 27 1947, Jasper Leach, operator of an independent service station on 8 Oklahoma…
Jul 6, 1952 · 30:00
Mrs Hadley goes to Sam White’s place to get her father but Sam won’t let her in telling her that he is as sick of her…
Jul 8, 1950 · 28:24
To a Texas Ranger may go as many as four assignments a week, a case may lead him in to the remotest corner of the…
Jun 1, 1952 · 30:06
It is 6:30pm Friday September 15th 1949 in Corvelle, Texas. Jim Reeves owner of the local hardware store is waiting on…
Jun 15, 1952 · 28:49
It is 10:30am on February 12th 1951 at the Texas Rangers Headquarters. As the captain of that company, Stinson, is…
Jun 22, 1952 · 29:25
The sheriff is called out to a disturbance at a hotel and discovers the body of an elderly man on the bathroom floor.…
Jun 29, 1952 · 29:17
It is 10:30 on the morning of September 14th 1940. Ten miles outside the town of High Point in South West Texas a thin…
Jun 8, 1952 · 29:56
It is 10.30 on a night late in August 1940. In a South West Texas town named El Corso the streets of the Mexican…
Mar 11, 1951 · 30:27
It is 5.45 am March 6th, 1940 and Pete Salverson owner of the roadside café in West Texas is opening for business. As…
Mar 16, 1952 · 29:16
It is 8:30 on Wednesday morning in Texas on July 7th 1951. As Sheriff Alan Hankins answers the telephone in his office.…
Mar 18, 1951 · 29:58
It is 9.45 pm on a Saturday night in September 1937. The business district of central city Texas is dark except for the…
Mar 2, 1952 · 28:57
It is 3:00am on September 17th 1948. In a farmhouse 9 miles north of Raynor, Texas, Helen Dryer wakes from a sound…
Mar 25, 1951 · 27:35
It is shortly after midnight the beginning of Good Friday in the year 1937. Jim Wiley constable of Roma Texas is…
Mar 30, 1952 · 29:08
It is 12:30 on a Friday night in early June 1948. In the town of Tipton, Texas, the graduation dance at Carolle College…
Mar 9, 1952 · 29:03
It is 7:40 pm on June 12th 1941. On a deserted stretch of highway through a thinly populated area of Texas, a sedan…
May 11, 1952 · 28:41
It is 3:30am during the night of April 25th 1938. Near the town of Carnesville, Texas, Ralph Lang and wife were asleep…
May 13, 1951 · 29:18
It is 7:45 pm August 18th 1941. Nick Hubbard the West Texas farmer is seated at the dinner table with his wife Min but…
May 18, 1952 · 28:42
It is approximately eleven o'clock on the evening of May 14th 1939. In the small south Texas town of Carville, Mr. and…
May 20, 1951 · 29:21
It is 9:50pm Saturday night October 14th 1949. There is a square dance in progress at the Fun Spot, a barn-like dance…
May 25, 1952 · 28:41
On October 8th 1939, Jim Hackett serving a life term for armed robbery and murder escaped from a Texas state prison. He…
May 27, 1951 · 29:15
The body of Malcolm Bonds, proprietor of the liquor store, was discovered by his wife less than five minutes after the…
May 4, 1952 · 29:55
Billy Sue entices her younger sister with the promise of lots of beautiful dresses to help her by distracting a ticket…
May 6, 1951 · 29:06
It is 11:30 am a Monday morning in November 1939. Sheriff Ross Petsby turns his car in to a quiet residential street in…
Nov 11, 1951 · 29:20
It is 1:37 am September 9th 1945 when John Meston a wealthy rancher is awakened by the sound of a speeding car…
Nov 12, 1950 · 28:53
It is 4:00pm June 26th 1949. Will Bonner proprietor of the general store in Stump Hill, Texas is waiting on Mac Kennedy…
Nov 18, 1951 · 30:00
Bud’s sister is courting a guy named Jennings and is planning to marry him. However Whitey wants her all to himself and…
Nov 25, 1951 · 29:20
John Bishop and his wife were low on gas and stopped at a petrol station intending to hold it up. However Mrs Bishop…
Nov 26, 1950 · 28:59
9:15 in the morning of May 5th 1947 the telephone rang in the sheriff’s office of the little town of Finny, Texas.…
Nov 4, 1951 · 28:47
It is 3:00pm an afternoon in November 1950. A deluge of rain has swamped the deserted roads of western Texas and a lone…
Nov 5, 1950 · 30:00
It is 6:00am June 23rd 1947. There is only one prisoner in the county jail. It is John Elliott Bascomb a notorious and…
Oct 14, 1951 · 28:48
At five minutes past twelve several years ago Sheriff Bob Smithies of Bradshaw, County Texas staged a raid on a…
Oct 15, 1950 · 28:56
It is 1:30 am December 4th, 1945. A single light glows in the living room of a farmhouse 4 miles to the town of Ashton…
Oct 21, 1951 · 29:05
It is approximately 11:30 on the night of January 21st 1948. Mr and Mrs Ben Purvis are driving back to their ranch on…
Oct 28, 1951 · 29:30
It is January 16th 1950, the time 6:28pm. A freight train just outside of a west Texas town gains speed and rolls…
Oct 29, 1950 · 29:37
When Bill Ross and his wife turn up at the ranch home of his parents they are shocked to find them brutally murdered.
Oct 7, 1951 · 28:33
A woman calls the sheriff in distress telling him he’d better go to the old house on the hill right away to old man…
Oct 8, 1950 · 28:40
It is 2:00 am on the morning of October 3rd 1948. A man stands in the brush on the American side of the Rio Grand…
Sep 14, 1952 · 30:00
It is 9:45 on a Saturday night in July 1947 from a drive-in theater three miles out of Texas a boy flags down a kind…
Sep 16, 1950 · 29:10
It is 4:00 pm April 14th 1947. A prisoner in the jail at Pentland County Texas is being returned to his cell as the…
Sep 2, 1950 · 29:11
At five minutes past midnight on December 12th several years ago sheriff Bob Smithers of Bradshaw County Texas staged a…
Sep 23, 1950 · 30:13
It is 1.37 am September 9th 1945. John Meston a wealthy rancher is awakened by the sound of a speeding car screeching…
Sep 30, 1950 · 29:11
Several years ago the town of Kilman, Texas boasted a population of slightly fewer than 3000 inhabitants until a wild…
Sep 30, 1951 · 29:17
It is 9:30 am November 18th 1941 in the big bend country of West Texas. J.C. Wilford of the bureau of mines and Fred…
Sep 7, 1952 · 29:35
It is very early morning on July 17th 1948 when two men in a large truck carrying sheep are overtaken by a car doing 70…
Sep 9, 1950 · 29:10
At exactly 9:13 am on Wednesday April 16th 1947 a French freighter carrying a highly explosive cargo of ammonium…
Ned, your old-time-radio guide
Ned · your guide to the archive

Now then. Enjoyed Tales of the Texas Rangers, did you? An old wireless hand reckons these are right up your street.

Gunsmoke
Both present serious Western law enforcement drama with authentic frontier settings and moral complexity
Death Valley Days
Both draw on real historical events and settings for their Western storytelling
Fort Laramie
Both present serious drama centered on law enforcement and order in the historical American frontier
Have Gun Will Travel
Both feature protagonists who are deeply committed to justice and operate with a clear moral code
Frontier Town
Both center on the challenge of maintaining law and order in a dangerous Western frontier setting