On November 27, 1885, twenty-year-old James O’Neill was hanged from the Sierra County sheriff’s gallows for the August 7, 1884 murder of Webber Lake dairyman John Woodward. The execution, conducted by Sheriff Samuel C. Stewart about 100 feet west of the site, was the last legal execution in Sierra County and the only time the gallows was used. Changes in state law in 1891 ended local executions in California, and further changes in 1941 ended hanging as a means of legal execution within the state.