History YMMV / WagonTrain

* HarsherInHindsight: Whether the {{Foreshadowing}} was intentional or not, rewatching "The Andrew Hale Story" can be rather painful. A character with the surname Hale, played by John [=McIntyre=] ends up being thrust into leadership of the train when Major Adams gets sick, and Charlie Wooster even makes a comment about finding a new wagonmaster to work for next year when the slowly-recovering Adams takes his misery out on the poor guy. A year and a half later, he does end up with a new wagonmaster [[RealLifeWritesThePlot due to Ward Bond's death]].

* MoralEventHorizon: Town strongman ruler Ben Mattox crosses it in "The Jane Hawkins Story", when he [[spoiler: despite learning that not only was Jane Hawkins innocent of the murder of his son Tad, it was his own daughter Laura that did it, still wants Jane hung. His stated reason is that since Laura was trying to kill Jane when it happened, that makes it still Jane's fault. Add to this, Laura did it because she had romantic feelings towards her adopted brother, which he did not return, both for love of Jane and it's implied, because he saw the girl he was raised with only as a sister.]] Mattox does not care, and it is this last line crossing that finally gives the townsfolk, with the prodding of Flint McCullogh, the spine to overthrow and break Mattox's rule once and for all.
* StrangledByTheRedString: Bills Hawks describes the title character of “The Lisa Raincloud Story” as his “whole life” after knowing her for just a few days.

* CrowningMusicOfAwesome: [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CRYvLijhqYA The stirring theme music.]] Just ''try'' not to be moved by it.

* TooDumbToLive: Clara Reynolds from "The Prairie Story", who freaks out after weeks on the prairie and decides that she wants to go home, alone, with ''one wagon'', across dozens of miles of prairie with no one around but her and her husband instead of staying with the train. Cue a while later in the episode where an Indian woman walks up wearing the broach that Clara was given as a keepsake, showing that one wagon, alone on the plains, was easy prey for the Indians.

* FairForItsDay: While still painting the settlers as mostly heroic people taming a wilderness, the show did not generally trade in "savage scalping redskin" depictions of Indians, and most characters were written as real people and not as national/ethnic stereotypes.