Mark Trail

Mark Trail is a radio adaptation of the popular newspaper comic strip of the same time. Early in his career, Ed Dodd, the creator of the comic strip, had lived in the west and worked at national parks, where he developed a strong interest in nature and conservation. He made Mark Trail, the eponymous hero of the comic, a wildlife photographer who kept running into conflicts with persons bent on exploiting or harming the environment. For the radio, Mark became a forest ranger and the stories became faster moving, more rock 'em sock 'em, but retained their focus on conserving and protecting the environment.

The show aired on the Mutual Broadcasting system in its first season, then moved to ABC. After its first two seasons of self-contained half-hour episodes, the show morphed into a 15-minute serial in its last season. At Mutual, Mark was portrayed by Matt Crowley; at ABC, by Staats Cotsworth, who is perhaps best remembered for Casey, Crime photographer.

The comic strip has continued until today, but, according the Wikipedia, as of mid-2020, the current author and King Features parted company. The strip started repeating older stories and it is unclear as of this writing whether a new artist will be hired to pen new strips.

For more information, see the Old Time Radio Catalog.

Series description provided by Frank Bell.