About this season
The Adventures of Jim Bowie is an American Western television series that aired on ABC from 1956 to 1958. Its setting was the 1830s-era Louisiana Territory. The series was an adaptation of the book Tempered Blade, by Monte Barrett. The series stars Scott Forbes as the real-life adventurer Jim Bowie. The series initially portrayed Jim Bowie as something of an outdoors-man, riding his horse through the wilderness near his home in Opelousas, where he would stumble across someone needing his assistance. He was aided by the Bowie Knife, his ever-present weapon. He designed it in the first episode, The Birth of the Blade.
Episodes (38)
1. Epitaph for an Indian
Aired 6 September 1957 • 30 min
When Bowie goes to his dead Indian friend's home town to deliver the news to his father, he finds that the father has just been shot.
2. Flowers for McDonough
Aired 13 September 1957 • 30 min
A wily Scotsman gets the better of Bowie on an important real estate deal.
3. The Irishman
Aired 20 September 1957 • 30 min
A indentured servant, whose contract is purchased by Bowie, deludes an innkeeper that he is the master and Bowie the servant.
4. Counterfeit Dixie
Aired 27 September 1957 • 30 min
Bowie solicits the help of a former pickpocket and a former horse thief to defeat a gang of counterfeiters.
5. Bullet Metal
Aired 4 October 1957 • 30 min
Bowie tries to purchase a lead mine, but the pacifist owner refuses to sell it to him if the metal will be used to make bullets.
6. Quarantine
Aired 11 October 1957 • 30 min
Bowie risks his life to recover a stolen shipment of desperately needed smallpox vaccine.
7. A Fortune for Madame
Aired 18 October 1957 • 30 min
When Bowie finds that he cannot purchase some land because the owners have just been swindled out of it, he decides to help them recover it.
8. House Divided
Aired 25 October 1957 • 30 min
Recovering from a gunshot wound in a fancy mansion, Bowie is asked by a young woman not to identify the person who shot him.
9. The Whip
Aired 1 November 1957 • 30 min
While on his way to inform the authorities of a plot to misuse the labor of prisoners, Bowie is trapped in a warehouse and attacked by a whip-wielding stranger.
10. Pearls of Talimeco
Aired 8 November 1957 • 30 min
When Bowie and an Indian friend make up a story to send an annoying acquaintance on a wild goose chase, it comes back to haunt them.
11. Charivari
Aired 15 November 1957 • 30 min
Bowie becomes suspicious when an elderly man dies abruptly on the night of his wedding.
12. Hare and Tortoise
Aired 22 November 1957 • 30 min
Bowie uncovers a plot to increase the value of some land upriver by moving the state capital there.
13. The Bridegroom
Aired 29 November 1957 • 30 min
In order to hide from a waterfront gang, Bowie has to pretend to be a prospective bridegroom at a French home.
14. The Alligator
Aired 6 December 1957 • 30 min
Inside a doll he bought as a birthday gift, Bowie finds a clue to a homicide plot.
15. Country Girl
Aired 13 December 1957 • 30 min
Bowie and his brother's fiancee are duped by swindlers claiming that a relative has been unjustly imprisoned in Mexico.
16. Mexican Adventure
Aired 20 December 1957 • 30 min
Bowie and his pirate friend Jean Lafitte, attempting to rescue a U.S. ambassador who has been captured by revolutionary forces in Mexico, take refuge in an inn at Christmastime.
17. Silk Purse
10.0Aired 27 December 1957 • 30 min
When a hillbilly puts up his daughter as a stake in a poker game, Bowie goes along with the idea to teach him a lesson, and then decides to send her to a finishing school to become a lady.
18. Choctaw Honor
Aired 3 January 1958 • 30 min
When Jim Bowie is robbed, he learns that the man who robbed him is also wanted by an Indian tribe for murder.
19. Close Shave
8.0Aired 10 January 1958 • 30 min
An assassin after Bowie kills an innocent man instead, but that doesn't stop him.
20. Pirate on Horseback
10.0Aired 17 January 1958 • 30 min
Bowie tracks down an outlaw gang when he finds out that one of them is using his name.
21. Curfew Cannon
Aired 24 January 1958 • 30 min
When Bowie and his brother learn that the bank they own in New Orleans is being robbed, they try to keep the thieves from getting away by using the city's signaling cannon.
22. Home Sweet Home
7.0Aired 31 January 1958 • 30 min
Bowie learns that foul play may be attempted at a concert arranged by his friend at the newspaper for composer John Howard Payne.
23. Deaf Smith
8.0Aired 7 February 1958 • 30 min
Now in Texas, Bowie encounters famous scout Deaf Smith while on the trail of an outlaw gang.
24. Ursula
Aired 14 February 1958 • 30 min
While negotiating with Mexican government officials to build a cotton mill in Texas, Bowie is attracted to the daughter of one of them.
25. Apache Silver
8.0Aired 21 February 1958 • 30 min
Bowie gets a lead on the location of the lost silver mine of the Apaches, but both hostile Apaches and Mexican officials make it difficult for him to follow it up.
26. A Grave for Jim Bowie
Aired 28 February 1958 • 30 min
Bowie comes to the aid of naturalist Johnny Appleseed, who has been captured by criminals who think that the riches in the ground he talks about are buried treasure.
27. Up the Creek
7.0Aired 7 March 1958 • 30 min
When Bowie solicits help from his cousin after being swindled by a group of good-natured hillbillies, he almosts gets the poor fellow married to one of them.
28. The Lion's Cub
Aired 14 March 1958 • 30 min
Bowie manages to get back across the border into Texas by signing on as an Englishman's valet, but then the pair are attacked by both outlaws and Comanches.
29. Horse Thief
8.0Aired 21 March 1958 • 30 min
Bowie almost loses the friendship of the Mexican governor of Texas when an old friend turns out to be a horse thief.
30. Jim Bowie, Apache
Aired 28 March 1958 • 30 min
Bowie becomes the blood brother of an Apache tribe whom he believes know the location of the lost silver mine he has been searching for, but discovers that his old friend has done the same thing with a tribe of Comanches who also know the secret.
31. The Brothers
Aired 4 April 1958 • 30 min
When young Jefferson Davis wants to join Bowie in his search for the lost mine, his older brother objects and challenges Bowie to a duel.
32. Patron of the Arts
8.0Aired 11 April 1958 • 30 min
Looking for an investment for his mother, Bowie considers purchasing artwork instead of another plantation.
33. Bad Medicine
8.0Aired 18 April 1958 • 30 min
At the President's urgent request, Bowie guides a doctor to a Choctaw village to cure a sick boy, only to discover that the doctor is an inexperienced youth fresh out of medical school.
34. A Night in Tennessee
Aired 25 April 1958 • 30 min
Bowie decides to run for Congress from Louisiana, and meets another frontiersman who did the same thing from Tennessee, Davy Crockett.
35. Bowie's Baby
Aired 2 May 1958 • 30 min
In Natchez, Bowie tries to find a new home for an infant who was the sole survivor of an Indian attack, but has trouble with the sheriff.
36. The Cave
8.0Aired 9 May 1958 • 30 min
Bowie tries to find out what happened to his cousin's bride, who disappeared on her wedding day after being seen with a hypnotist.
37. Man of the Streets
9.0Aired 16 May 1958 • 30 min
Owed a lot of money by a man who has no cash, Bowie makes him an offer for his land in New Orleans, and we learn the origin of some of the street names there.
38. The Puma
Aired 23 May 1958 • 30 min
Jess Miller, in Texas to collect some money for his friend Bowie, is mistaken for Bowie by the Mexican army, who try to take him prisoner.