Cimarron Strip/The Battleground

The Battleground
Season 1, Episode 4
Airdate	September 28, 1967
Production Number	0701
Written by	Christopher Knopf
Directed by	Don Medford
← 1x03 Broken Wing	1x05 → The Hunted
Cimarron Strip — Season One

The pilot: When clearing out old boxes at the Wayfarers Inn Dulcey comes across a magazine she had when she first met Marshal Crown.

Guest Starring: Telly Savalas (Bear).

Starring: Warren Oates (Mobeetle), R.G. Armstrong (William Payne), Robert Wilke (Hardy Miller), Andrew Duggan (Major Covington).

Co-Starring: Hal Needham (Yewcic), Dick Farnsworth (Benefiel), John Hudkins (Chalk), Buff Brady (Wallant), Jerry Brown (Lillard), Seymour Cassel (Spock), Natividad Vacio (Ciego), Link Wyler (Orderly), Arthur Bernard (Conductor), Zack Bank (First Settler), Robert Folkerson (Second Settler), David Gross (First Farmer), Ross Dollarhide (Second Farmer), Joe Ferrante First Man), Carol Henry (Second Man), John Milford (Wooley), L.Q. Jones (Barnes).

Plot Overview

Crown is a passenger on a train bound for Cimarron City. Almost opposite is seated Dulcey Coopersmith with a magazine Indian Scout in the Southwest writing on the cover what she thought the occupation of the well dressed man was: Gunfighter, Lawyer, Parson, Gambler. When he doffs his hat to her she crosses out Parson.

The train is attacked by cowboys and the Farmers terrorised and their livestock and equipment thrown off the train. Crown capture Mobeetle revealing he is a US Marshal.

Across the Cimarron River, The Cherokee Outlet, the last free homestead land in American for the last 10 years leased to cattlemen but now the farmers are expecting a descision by Washington to let them have the land they have been campaigning for.

Assigned to Cimarron City, Crown finds that there is no law in the town, the Sheriff resigned two days earlier, and that he will not receive any help from the Army in order to settle the ever increasing problem, and the news he brings that the cattlemen's leases have been revoked and a decision on the land is postponed indefinitely.

Bringing Mobeetle to the local jail he find it has been destroyed by MacGregor's still exploding, In the semi derelict Wayfarers Inn, Crown is forced to jail his old buddy "Bear", and his gang of renegade cowboys, when they go on a free-for-all drunk and terrorize Cimarron. Crown improvises a jail in the Inn's store

Upon their release from jail, the cowboys discover that their boss, cattleman Hardy Miller, has lost his government land lease, and the cattle boss Miller is forced to fire Bear and his group, knowing they will stop the farmers led by William Payne and vow to turn the Cimarron River bloody red.

Notes

Pilot episode, first to be filmed.

Arc Advancement

Characters

• Bear and Mobeetle are cowboys and with their men (20) working for:
• Hardy Miller, cattlemens leader and leaseholder of the disputed land.
• William Payne, "The Farmers Messaih" 10 years campaigning for rights to farm the land.
• Major Covington, veteran soldier with no stomach for a fight believing the cattlemen are right hiding behind red tape.

• Dulcey mother died the previous month and she came to Cimarron to find her father she had not seen since age five, only to find he had died under a beer wagon two weeks earlier.
• MacGregor was in jail for horse stealing but he claimed it was barley he stole to make alcohol in the very still that blew up the jail. He also was a partner of Dulcey's father English Charley in the Wayfarers Inn.
• Francis is young freelance photographer and reporter always looking for a scoop to sell.