If you grew up on TV westerns, The Rifleman was one of the shows that stood out right from the opening.
The series premiered on ABC on Tuesday, September 30, 1958, and ran until April 8, 1963. It aired for five seasons, with 168 black-and-white episodes, starring Chuck Connors as Lucas McCain and Johnny Crawford as his son, Mark.
The story was set in the fictional town of North Fork, New Mexico Territory, where Lucas McCain was a widowed rancher raising his son while also helping keep order when trouble came to town. He was not the sheriff, but with that specially modified Winchester rifle, he was usually the man everyone looked to when things got dangerous.
What made the show different was the father-and-son relationship. Yes, there were outlaws, gunfights, cattlemen, drifters, and plenty of western action, but at the center of it was Lucas trying to raise Mark with a strong sense of right and wrong. For a half-hour western, it often had a lot of heart.
And then there was that opening. Lucas McCain walking into the street and firing that rifle so fast it almost became the show’s signature before the story even began. If you watched it as a kid, that image stayed with you.
The Rifleman had the action kids wanted, but it also had a moral lesson built into many episodes. Lucas was tough, but he was also a father first. That gave the show something a little different from the usual shoot-’em-up western.
Did you watch The Rifleman when it first aired, or did you catch it later in reruns? And were you more interested in the fast rifle, or the way Lucas and Mark stuck together?