The Lone Ranger was the creation of George W. Trendle, a theater manager and a former lawyer, who, in partnership with John H. King, purchased radio station WXYZ, Detroit, in 1930. When CBS balked at some of Trendle's attempts to include innovative programming in the schedule, he decided to sever his affiliation with CBS and transform XYZ into an independent station with its own acting company and its own productions. One of Trendle's ideas, developed with studio manager Harold True and producer James Jewell, was a new show about a western hero, a larger-than-life Robin Hood of the West, whose personal code of ethics and morals would set him apart from ordinary heroes. In collaboration with Fran Striker, a writer who had earlier produced a Western program with a similar theme on a radio station in Buffalo, New York, Trendle's group transformed the idea into...