Uploaded July 2019 | Updated September 2026, 3 hours ago
Original Airdate: January 4, 1951 (Starring Howard Culver)
Two ne’re-do-well swindlers preying on western-bound wagon trains full of tender-foot settlers from the east pull a bait-and-switch land deal on an unsuspecting couple. Time for Steve Adams to transform into the righteous vigilante warrior - Straight Arrow!
The Straight Arrow radio program was a western adventure series for families which was broadcast, mostly twice weekly in the United States from 1948 or 1949 through 1951. A total of 292 episodes were aired. Politically incorrect by today’s standards with its red-face Indian portrayal by a white man, it nevertheless, remains a slice of old-time radio drama and Americana from yesteryear. Captured white women in the east and their narratives aside, the story of the American west is more complex and variegated than imagined by standard Hollywood depictions with numerous “half-breeds” or "HB"'s living as either Indians or whites and counted as such in the 1870 census, depending on which community they resided in.
Although first broadcast only in California, in early 1949 it was broadcast nationally on the Mutual Broadcasting Network. All the programs were written by Sheldon Stark.
The protagonist, rancher Steve Adams, became the Comanche Indian, the Straight Arrow, when bad people or other dangers threatened. In fact, Adams was a Comanche orphan who had been adopted by the Adams ranching family and later inherited the ranch. His dual identity was known to only one friend. Internal evidence places the ranch in the vicinity of the Colorado Rockies in the 1870s. Howard Culver played both Adams and Straight Arrow.
The program was sponsored by Nabisco Shredded Wheat cereal.
Original Airdate: January 4, 1951 (Starring Howard Culver)
Two ne’re-do-well swindlers preying on western-bound wagon trains full of tender-foot settlers from the east pull a bait-and-switch land deal on an unsuspecting couple. Time for Steve Adams to transform into the righteous vigilante warrior - Straight Arrow!
The Straight Arrow radio program was a western adventure series for families which was broadcast, mostly twice weekly in the United States from 1948 or 1949 through 1951. A total of 292 episodes were aired. Politically incorrect by today’s standards with its red-face Indian portrayal by a white man, it nevertheless, remains a slice of old-time radio drama and Americana from yesteryear. Captured white women in the east and their narratives aside, the story of the American west is more complex and variegated than imagined by standard Hollywood depictions with numerous “half-breeds” or "HB"'s living as either Indians or whites and counted as such in the 1870 census, depending on which community they resided in.
Although first broadcast only in California, in early 1949 it was broadcast nationally on the Mutual Broadcasting Network. All the programs were written by Sheldon Stark.
The protagonist, rancher Steve Adams, became the Comanche Indian, the Straight Arrow, when bad people or other dangers threatened. In fact, Adams was a Comanche orphan who had been adopted by the Adams ranching family and later inherited the ranch. His dual identity was known to only one friend. Internal evidence places the ranch in the vicinity of the Colorado Rockies in the 1870s. Howard Culver played both Adams and Straight Arrow.
The program was sponsored by Nabisco Shredded Wheat cereal.
