Capt. Taft (James Sikking) tells his driver that David Vincent has "enough gall to be divided into three parts." This is a pun on Julius Caesar's "Commentary": "All Gaul is divided into three parts, one of which the Belgae inhabit, the Aquitani another, those who in their own language are called Celts, in ours Gauls, the third."
The title is taken from Psalm 23 in the King James Version of the Bible ("though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death..."), which psalm the minister recites in its entirety near the close of the program.
The town square for Carterville, Wyoming is the Warner Bros. studio back lot, which was used for several other town squares such as Stars Hollow on Gilmore Girls (2000).
Set in the fictional town of Carterville, Wyoming, the county is also depicted as Carter County. However, there are only 23 counties in Wyoming, and none of them are named Carter. Based on the opening narration of having the North Platte River as the northern boundary of Carterville, this fits the general description of Goshen County, just west of Scottsbluff, Nebraska.
In the opening and closing narration, it is said the population of the (fictional) town of Carterville, Wyoming is 1,216.