Jim Davis, who became famous decades later as the patriarch Jock Ewing in the Dallas television series, held a dual role as the show’s narrator and Southwest Railroad detective Matt Clark.[1]Mary Castle co-starred in twenty-six episodes as Clark’s assistant, Frankie Adams; she was replaced by Kristine Miller, who appeared in thirteen episodes as Margaret “Jonesy” Jones. Clark and his female associates traveled the American West weekly, seeking to capture the most notorious badmen. They placed Clark at the right place and the right time to capture great moments in the history of the American Old West. Clark’s appearances often seemed contrived, as when he appears just at the time young Robert Ford was assassinating Jesse James. Though Clark himself was fictional, the events he encountered were generally real, with their historicity enforced with newspaper accounts and some historical records.
