On Christmas Eve 1872 in Visalia, James G. McCrory, who had previously committed murders in Visalia and Arizona, became drunk and disorderly at the El Dorado Saloon on Main Street. When owner Charles Allen tried to quiet him, McCrory shot Allen three times in the body and once in the head. McCrory fled out the back and hid in an outhouse, where Deputy Reynolds and others found and arrested him. As he was taken to the jail house, a crowd gathered, shouting for him to be hanged and showing its anger at the lawlessness in town. Soon a heavily armed group of vigilantes formed at the jail, overpowered the sheriff and deputies, dragged McCrory with a rope around his neck to the Mill Creek Bridge on Court Street, tied the rope to the railing, and threw him over. The next day the crowd collected money for his burial so the county would not bear the cost. For many years afterward, bad men of the valley avoided Visalia, and the Visalia Paper praised the citizens, saying that McCrory had arrived from Arizona on Tuesday morning, murdered a man that afternoon, and was hanged that evening.