played mining developer Charles Poston, the "Father of Arizona". When Reagan left to run for Governor of California, he was succeeded by Robert Taylor. Like Reagan, Taylor appeared as a character in some of the shows, including "The Day All Marriages Were Cancelled" (1966), also based on the career of Charles Poston. He portrayed Horace Bell in another 1967 episode, "Major Horace Bell." That same year in the episode "Shanghai Kelly's Birthday Party," Taylor played James Kelly of San Francisco. After playing Porter Stockton in another 1967 episode "Halo for a Badman", he would portray Texas John Slaughter, a role most associated with Tom Tryon, in the 1968 Death Valley Days episode "A Short Cut through Tombstone". Taylor became gravely ill in 1969, and after 69 episodes was succeeded by Dale Robertson, former star of two other western series, Tales of Wells Fargo and Iron Horse. Robertson would serve as host and occasional actor for 23 episodes until production of new episodes ceased in 1970. In 1975, the show briefly returned in reruns, with singer Merle Haggard providing narration for some previously made episodes. The commercial spokesperson for the show was Rosemary DeCamp. When the show began in 1952, Dorothy McCann gave DeCamp a long-term contract to have DeCamp and her daughters appear in the commercials. She also appeared in four episodes. While the series followed the anthology format, with all new stories and characters in each episode, the series would utilize many character actors over its 18-year run; some of whom (such as Don Haggerty, John Pickard, Gregg Barton, Michael Vallon, James Seay, Guy Wilkerson and Roy Engel) would reappear over the entire run of the series. Episodes Background and production Development In 1930, the Pacific Coast Borax Company was looking for ways to market their products, including 20 Mule Team Borax. Working with their New York advertising agency, McCann-Erickson, they settled on creating a radio program to highlight Death Valley, the obscure location of much of the company's borax mining operations. McCann copywriter Ruth Woodman, who had experience with radio copywriting, was selected to write the show. As a long-time New Yorker, Woodman had never been to Death Valley and the initial story of the discovery of borax was written entirely from reference books. Woodman eventually decided to visit Death Valley, and eventually made several trips there to research story material for the show, which eventually became a