Abilene Town is a 1946 American Western film directed by Edwin L. Marin and starring Randolph Scott and Ann Dvorak.

The movie is set in the Old West years immediately following the Civil War, in the cattle town of Abilene, Kansas.

The story was adapted from Ernest Haycox’s book Trail Town.

Plot
In the years following the Civil War, Kansas is in the middle of a difficult time. Homesteaders are moving into the West, trying to start new lives, and are going head to head against cattlemen who have been settled in that territory for years. In Abilene, one of the biggest cattle towns of the west, the town is on the brink of a confrontation between the cattlemen and the homesteaders.

Marshal Dan Mitchell (Randolph Scott) has the job of keeping the peace between the two groups. For a long time, the town has been divided, with the cattlemen and cowboys having one side of the main street to themselves, while townspeople occupied the other side. Mitchell liked it this way, it made things easier for him, and kept problems from arising between the two factions. However, when homesteaders decide to lay stakes on the edge of town that balance is upset, and leads to a deadly showdown.

The leader of the homesteaders is Henry Dreiser (Lloyd Bridges), a young man with good common sense, and the local sheriff is Bravo Trimble (Edgar Buchanan), a lawman who would rather play cards than be involved in any confrontation. Mitchell not only has the difficult job of juggling the upcoming confrontation, but also his love life, which is divided between Rita (Ann Dvorak), a showgirl who works on the cowboys’ side of the street, and Sherry (Rhonda Fleming), the churchgoing daughter of a shopkeeper on the other side of the street.

Cast
Randolph Scott as Marshall Dan Mitchell
Edgar Buchanan as Sheriff Bravo Trimble
Lloyd Bridges as Henry Dreiser
Ann Dvorak as Rita
Rhonda Fleming as Sherry Balder
Helen Boyce as Big Annie
Howard Freeman as Ed Balder
Richard Hale as Charlie Fair
Jack Lambert as Jet Younger
Eddy Waller as Hannaberry
Hank Patterson as Doug Neil
Chubby Johnson as Homesteader (uncredited), his screen debut