Thanks to a couple of comments on my blog series about Two-Gun Nan,  I was inspired to try again to find the Death Valley Days episode about her record-setting cross-country journey.

The TV show appeared in 1958 as episode 16 of season 6. At the time I was writing about “Two-Gun” Nan Aspinwall, the episode wasn’t available online without paying for it, but it is now on YouTube for all to see. Go and enjoy!

The TV version sticks pretty closely to Nan’s actual daring journey. The main difference is that she and her husband Frank Gable came up with the idea in 1910, a year or two after they left Buffalo Bill Cody’s Wild West Show. In the Death Valley Days episode, Buffalo Bill is part of the plan and encourages Nan to take the challenge. You can hardly blame the screenwriter for wanting to keep Buffalo Bill in the picture.

Nan herself, elderly but cheerful and spry, consulted on the show. At the time of filming, she would have been 78 years old. She hadn’t lost any of her spunk. And here she is: