One of the biggest names in the long-lost golden age of horse opera television, the (mostly) black-and-white Wagon Train is a noteworthy series for a few reasons. For starters, the show's engaging anthology-like commitment to exploring new characters in each episode was a draw that kept the program -- which originally aired on NBC before jumping to ABC in its final years -- fresh for eight seasons. It also just happens to be a series that helped inspire the original Star Trek. Nevertheless, part of what made Wagon Train so special was the cast itself, which suffered a major change about halfway through the series' run. No Western reached quite as highly as this one, and none recovered so masterfully from the loss of its leading star.
'Wagon Train's Cast Suffered a Massive Blow During Its Fourth Season
For its first three seasons, Wagon Train was headlined by star Ward Bond, who played parts in It's A Wonderful Life and The Searchers beforehand. Bond played Major Seth Adams, a tough wagon boss with a heart of gold willing to do whatever it took to get his company across the Midwestern plains and through the Rocky Mountains. Each season begins in St. Louis, Missouri, as the wagon train travels across the Western landscape to reach their Californian destination during the immediate post-Civil War era. Because of the show's unique format, Major Adams and his fellow crewmates -- such as scout Flint McCullough (Robert Horton), cook Charlie Wooster (Frank McGrath), and assistant trail master Bill Hawks (Terry Wilson) -- often found themselves playing second fiddle to a rotating door of one-and-one guest stars (including some seriously big names like country artist Johnny Cash and even John Wayne himself), each of whom had important stories to tell.
Wagon Train -- which was often syndicated as Major Adams, Trailmaster, or simply Trailmaster -- ran on like this for its first three seasons. In fact, it continued as regularly scheduled in Season 4 as well, until midway through shooting, Ward Bond suffered a fatal heart attack on November 5, 1960. Having shot 22 episodes of the 38-episode fourth season, with "The Ben Pearson Story" being Bond's final Wagon Train performance, the show was forced to go on. It's hard to imagine anyone playing Major Seth Adams apart from Ward Bond, and the network agreed. The next few episodes were shot as normal. Robert Horton's Flint McCullough and the rest of the usual cast continued to keep the titular wagon train going. The strangest part of all of it is, when Ward Bond's Major Adams is eventually replaced as wagon boss, there's never any mention as to what became of the fatherly frontiersman. He simply vanishes, and that's that.
Related 10 Classic Western TV Shows That Still Hold Up, According to Reddit
Saddle up and enjoy these vintage Western shows, partner.
Posts 'Wagon Train' Carried On with a New Lead and Plenty More Material to Work With Close
After Ward Bond's last episode, "The Ben Pearson Story," was released posthumously in February 1961, it took Wagon Train three more episodes to introduce their next wagon boss. In "The Christopher Hale Story," actor John McIntire was brought on board as the new trailmaster, Chris Hale, who leads the annual expedition through the end of the series. Because McIntire had already appeared on the program as a preacher during the second season's "The Andrew Hale Story," Christopher Hale is retconned as that character's brother. According to MeTV, there was never anyone else considered as Ward Bond's replacement. John McIntire (who would later appear in The Virginian) aimed to make Chris Hale a gentler sort of trailmaster than his predecessor, hoping not to imitate Bond's previous performance.
Together alongside Robert Horton's Flint McCullough, John McIntire's Chris Hale continued with Wagon Train through the rest of the fourth and into the fifth season until Horton got tired of Westerns. According to Tim Brooks and Earle Marsh in their book, The Complete Directory to Prime Time Network and Cable TV Shows, 1946-Present, Horton was fed up with horse operas entirely, and wanted a change. So, Flint McCullough was written out of the series, and Horton was replaced a season later with Robert Fuller, who played the new scout, Cooper Smith. New cast members, Michael Burns as Barnaby West and Denny Miller as Duke Shannon, were added in the final seasons as well. Throughout all 284 episodes of Wagon Train, the only cast members to see the whole series through were Frank McGrath and Terry Wilson (Charlie Wooster and Bill Hawks, respectively), but even with the serious shift in the cast, Wagon Train retained its charm as a classic Western series.
Your changes have been saved
Email is sent
Email has already been sent
Wagon Train TV-PG Western
Stories of the journeys of a wagon train as it leaves post-Civil War Missouri on its way to California through the plains, deserts, and Rocky Mountains.
Release Date September 18, 1957 Cast Frank McGrath , Terry Wilson , robert horton , John McIntire , Ward Bond , Denny Miller , Robert Fuller , Michael Burns Seasons 8
Wagon Train is available for streaming on Starz in the U.S.
Watch on Starz