The unused pilot with Hunter cast as lawyer Timothy Higgins, was released in theaters in December 1963 as "The Man from Galveston". Hopeful of success in the series and being paid $5,000 per episode, Jeffrey Hunter, a native of New Orleans, Louisiana, described the historic figure that he played as "one of the finest lawyers in the last part of the 19th century." Indeed, Temple Houston at the age of 20 was the youngest practicing lawyer in Texas. He was the county attorney in Brazoria County south of Houston, until he accepted appointment as the district attorney of the 35th Judicial District, which then encompassed 26 counties in the Texas Panhandle, based in the frontier community of Mobeetie in Wheeler County.