Tales of Wells Fargo

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Tales of Wells Fargo was a successful TV western series that ran from 1957 to 1962. It starred Dale Robertson as special agent Jim Hardie, noted at the time as "the left-handed gun". Jack Nicholson starred in the episode "The Washburn Girl" that aired on February 2, 1961. The series was produced by Revue Productions. The TV show also spawned a number of publications for young readers, including the hardcover book "Danger at Dry Creek" (Golden Press, 1959), a series of Dell comics, and Little Golden Books. For its first two years, the show was also in the top ten Nielsen Ratings. During the 1957-1958 season, it was ranked #3[1], and during the 1958-1959 season, it was ranked #7[2].

Wells Fargo was a half-hour program until its final season, when it expanded to an hour. In the 1960-1961 season it was opposite ABC's detective series Surfside 6 and CBS's new sitcom Bringing Up Buddy, starring Frank Aletter. Wells Fargo and Surfide 6 survived another year, but Bringing Up Buddy was cancelled. Wells Fargo was the lead-in that year to a new NBC Western, Klondike, but that series, set in the Alaskan gold rush town of Skagway, survived only seventeen episodes.