How the West Was Won (TV series)
How the West Was Won is an American Western television series that starred James Arness, Eva Marie Saint, Fionnula Flanagan, Bruce Boxleitner, and Richard Kiley. Loosely based on the 1962 Cinerama film of the same name, it began with a two-hour television film, The Macahans, in 1976, followed by a mini-series in 1977, and a regular series in 1978 and 1979. The show was a great success in Europe, apparently finding a larger and more lasting audience there than in the United States. It has been rebroadcast many times on various European networks, e.g. in France, Germany, Italy, Norway and Sweden, and has built a cult following. It was released on DVD in Europe in November 2009. A sequence of paintings by Charles Marion Russell is shown during the end credits. Episodes Plot Zebulon Macahan is a well-known mountain man and scout working for the U.S. Army in the Indian Territories. The pilot movie shows Zeb not having seen his family for ten years and with the Civil War approaching, deciding to visit them in Manassas, Virginia. As war comes too close to home, Zeb's sister-in-law, Kate, convinces her husband, Zeb's brother Tim, to move their two sons, Seth and