The greatest challenge of the makeup artist, 'Joseph Hadley', was to transform 'Francis Urry' from a middle-aged man to appear as Lorenzo Snow, who was about 30 years older. Wetzel O. Whitaker recounts in his memoirs, "Pioneering With Film" that from his very first scene in costume and makeup (Beehive House in Salt Lake City), Urry assumed a shuffling gait and stooped figure and stayed in character through the end of the production whenever he was made up as President Snow, "Actually he was a man about my age, but so convincing was he that I found myself assisting him up and down stairways - and he allowed me to do it !"
A steam locomotive of the vintage used at the end of the 19th Century was required for scenes of Pres. Snow's journey from Salt Lake City, and it had been assumed that one could be borrowed from the Geneva Steel Plant near the BYU studios. Several had been sitting idle there, but unfortunately it was found that they had been dismantled for scrap only six months earlier. Kennecott Copper was found to have access to an appropriate locomotive in Ely, Nevada, but it had to be used locally. Fortunately the scenery there was very similar to Modena, Utah where President Snow and his party had transferred from the train to carriages, for the last leg of his journey to St. George.
According to 'Wetzel O. Whitaker', pre-production research on the script with his brother Scott yielded all the plot elements of a full length feature, but they had been given a budget for only a thirty-minute film. A compromise was reached, allowing for the 50-minute length finally released.