I know that one episode - which I haven't seen but desperately want to - told the story of how L. Frank Baum came up with the idea for his book "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz."
But that all happened in Aberdeen SD, where Baum lived at the time (1890's).
How could that possibly have ties to California's "Death Valley"???
"Don't call me 'honey', mac."
"Don't call me 'mac'... HONEY!"
How could that possibly have ties to California's "Death Valley"???
The episode on Encore Western right now is The Man Who Wouldn't Die was set in Austin, Texas and was filmed in Utah. I was wondering the same thing as the OP.
Joe "We're authorized" Fontana: I can do this all day, Mitch. How about you?
I've often wondered about the same thing. Like Gunsmoke, it was a radio show for a long time before coming to TV.
My thought was that there just wasn't enough material about Death Valley per se, so they expanded the premise to include "stories of the pioneer spirit" or "stories of the old west".
It's what Dale Robertson says in his intros:
"Stories of the Old West, stories of hardship and adventure, of dreams and courage; stories of the American pioneer are all a part of our past, our heritage."
It was called Death Valley Days for two reasons. First, quite a few of the episodes supposedly took place in the general vicinity of Death Valley--though not always in the valley itself. Second, Death Valley played a large role in the settlement of the West, since prospectors traveled through it to get to the gold fields during the major gold rush in the late 1840s.
The valley received its English name in 1849 during the California Gold Rush. It was called Death Valley by prospectors and others who sought to cross the valley on their way to the gold fields, after 13 pioneers perished from one early expedition of wagon trains. During the 1850s, gold and silver were extracted in the valley. In the 1880s, borax was discovered and extracted by mule-drawn wagons. So there was a lot of activity in and around Death Valley for several decades during the settlement of the West.
Nowadays it plays much less of a role, except for some tourism, because folks no longer have to cross its treacherous sands to get to southern CA from the east.
❇ If you can remember the '60s, then you weren't there. ❇
I can't be sure but I believe that the program sponsor had a hand in the naming of the show. The Pacific Coast Borax Company sponsored Death Valley Days, a radio and television anthology dramatizing true stories of the old American West, particularly the Death Valley area. The radio program was created in 1930 by Ruth Woodman and broadcast until 1945. The name 20 Mule Team Borax was established and aggressively promoted by Pacific Coast Borax to increase sales. The 20-mule team symbol was first used in 1891 and registered in 1894. 20-mule teams were first used by Francis Marion Smith to move borax out of the desert area of Death Valley.
shareYes, the program was called Death Valley days because it was sponsored by 20 Mule Team Borax, and Borax was mined in Death Valley and freighted out in wagons pulled by 20 mule teams from 1883-1889.
https://scvhistory.com/scvhistory/borax-20muleteam.htm
So the program was called Death Valley Days to please the sponsor.
If it had a different sponsor it might have been called Tales of Western Union or Wells Fargo Days or Union Pacific Stories.