What was the longest running Western T.V. series
The Virginian (TV series) McIntire and Stewart Granger portraying different characters. The series ran for nine seasons—television's third longest running western, behind "Bonanza" at 14 seasons and 430 episodes, and "Gunsmoke" at 20 seasons and 635 episodes. The series is loosely based on "The Virginian: Horseman of the Plains", a 1902 western novel by Owen Wister. Percy Faith composed the theme. When Revue Productions' hour-long series "Wagon Train" moved from the NBC network to ABC, "The Virginian" was proposed to replace it. From the beginning, the series was filmed in color on 35mm film. Set in the late 19th century, and loosely based on
T. V. Olsen also began to sell Western stories to pulp magazines at this time. Though Olsen would occasionally travel west, he lived his whole life in Rhinelander and would use exhaustive research to help accurately portray scenes of the West in his stories. Olsen was married to fellow Western fiction author Beverly Butler. Olsen died in Rhinelander on July 13, 1993, and several works were published posthumously. Much of T.V. Olsen's family still lives in the Rhinelander region. They own a ranch with a century old farm house and dairy barn. Western Other Novels Rhinelander Country Series T. V. Olsen Theodore Victor