Doris Day wrote in her 1975 autobiography that this was one of the films that she did not want to do, but was forced to do because her husband and manager Martin Melcher had power of attorney, and signed her for it without her knowledge or consent. She called this a "second-rate television western" that required her to get up at 4:30 every morning. However, she did enjoy the camaraderie of her fellow cast members.
In her autobiography, Doris Day wrote that this movie was one of her least favorite films, also citing Caprice (1967), Do Not Disturb (1965), and Where Were You When the Lights Went Out? (1968), all films, for which her husband and manager, Martin Melcher, signed her, without her consent.
Andrew V. McLaglen wanted Robert Mitchum to star opposite Doris Day. Peter Graves would work out as considerably better value, receiving $50,000 as opposed to Mitchum's usual salary around this time, $250,000.
Part of the plot is based on true facts that women in Wyoming already had the right to vote before they applied for statehood, and would not join the Union unless women could keep the right to vote.
The failure of this film at the box office was a deciding factor in Doris Day's husband and manager Martin Melcher opening negotiations with CBS that would result in a $6 million contract committing her to appear in a TV sitcom for a minimum of five years. Day claimed to have been unaware of the contract until after Melcher's unexpected death in April 1968, when she found several scripts for "something called The Doris Day Show" among the papers in her late husband's office, it indeed becoming The Doris Day Show (1968).