Wyatt Earp was born in Monmouth, Illinois in 1848. As a young man, Earp was a stagecoach driver, railroad construction worker, surveyor, buffalo hunter, and a policeman. In 1876 he became Chief Deputy Marshal of Dodge City, Kansas a lawless frontier town. Within a year he brought relative peace to Dodge City and moved on. In 1879 he settled in Tombstone Arizona Territory and furthered his reputation as a gunfighter. It was in Tombstone that he met his third wife, Josephine Sarah Marcus Earp.

Josephine arrived in Arizona as an 18 year-old Dance Hall girl who had run away from her family and moved in with Johnny Behan, the 42 year-old Sheriff. Quickly looking for someone better, she found Wyatt who was 6' tall, 160 lbs., blond hair, and piercing blue eyes. He was living with his second wife, who may have been a prostitute. That didn't stop Wyatt and Josephine who herself may have dabbled in the sex trade. The second Mrs. Earp committed suicide in 1888 telling her friends her husband had destroyed her life when he deserted her.

Earp and three of his brothers, together with the American frontiersman, Doc Holliday, participated in the famous O.K. Corral Gunfight in 1881, during which they killed several suspected cattle rustlers. Wyatt and Josie left Tombstone in 1882 gambling their way through the West. If there was a Gold Rush going on you could find him there. He was always on the lookout for people who had made their money quickly and would part with it just as fast. Wyatt and Josie had moved about in Colorado, Idaho, and Texas before reaching San Diego. She was 24 and he was 37 when they arrived.

He was an opportunist and a gambler who fit in well in San Diego in 1886. Wyatt heard about the coming of the Santa Fe Railroad and the budding Real Estate and when he arrived he saw the potential for making money on land and at the gambling tables. Earp opened three gambling halls in what is now called the Gaslamp Quarter on Fourth Avenue between Broadway and E Street, on Sixth Avenue between E and F and on the north side of E near Sixth. He offered 21 games of faro, blackjack, poker and keno and could count on profits of as much as $1,000 per night. He also played cards at the Oyster Bar which was located in the Louis Bank of Commerce Building on Fifth Avenue.

When Wyatt won his first racehorse, Otto Rex, in a card game he began investing in racehorses. He sometimes raced him himself at a track in Pacific Beach north of Mission Bay and judged the first races held at the Del Mar Race Track.

Regarded as a good ally in a brawl, Earp occasionally refereed prizefights. During Wyatt and Josie's time in San Diego, they invested in speculative mining ventures and, along with most San Diegans, lost a bundle when the boom went bust in 1888-1889.

Josie and Wyatt Earp found a cottage in Vital, California, not far from Parker, Arizona, where they spent their winters during their last 25 years together. Earp died on January 13, 1929, at the age of 81. Josie lived to be 83. They both had fond memories of San Diego and Josie remarked in her memoirs that their time in San Diego was among the happiest of their lives.