Tales of Wells Fargo

Tales of Wells Fargo
Dale Robertson as Jim Hardie, 1958.
Genre	Western
Created by	James Brooks Frank Gruber Gene Reynolds
Directed by	Earl Bellamy William F. Claxton Lewis R. Foster Jerry Hopper Leslie H. Martinson Gene Reynolds Sidney Salkow R.G. Springsteen George Waggner William Witney
Starring	Dale Robertson William Demarest Virginia Christine Jack Ging
Theme music composer	Mort Greene Harry Warren Stanley Wilson
Composer(s)	Paul Dunlap Michael Greene Melvyn Lenard Morton Stevens Harry Sukman John Williams
Country of origin	United States
Original language(s)	English
No. of seasons	6
No. of episodes	200
Production
Producer(s)	Nat Holt Earle Lyon
Running time	30 mins, (1957-1961) 60 mins. (1961-1962)
Production company(s)	Overland Productions Revue Studios
Distributor	NBCUniversal Television Distribution
Release
Original network	NBC
Picture format	Black-and-white (1957-61) Color (1961-62)
Audio format	Monaural
Original release	March 18, 1957 (1957-03-18) – June 2, 1962 (1962-06-02)

Tales of Wells Fargo is an American Western television series starring Dale Robertson that ran from 1957 to 1962 on NBC. Produced by Revue Productions, the series aired in a half-hour format until its final season when it expanded to an hour.

Set in the 1870s and 1880s, the series starred the Oklahoma native Dale Robertson as special agent Jim Hardie, noted at the time as "the left-handed gun". The series development was influenced by the biography of Wells Fargo detective Fred J. Dodge. The concept of Tales of Wells Fargo, a company troubleshooter in the American West, was also adapted by the syndicated series Pony Express, co-starring Grant Sullivan as detective Brett Clark, which aired in the 1959-1960 season, nearly coinciding with the centennial of the Pony Express. Even earlier, from 1954 to 1955, Jim Davis had starred as a railroad investigator, Matt Clark, in the syndicated Stories of the Century. Davis and Robertson, both of whom had unusual but similar-sounding speaking voices, each did the narration for their respective series.

In the 1957 Christmas episode entitled "Laredo", Jim Hardie must track gunrunners across the United States/Mexican border in Laredo, Texas, a quest which keeps him from spending the holiday with friends as he had intended. Guest stars include Henry Rowland, Rodolfo Hoyos, Jr., Karl Swenson, and Pierre Watkin.