In 1853 following his father's death, Joe Dye left the family farm and worked for several years as a miner and mule team driver various places in the Southwest.
From March 17, 1860 Joseph F. Dye ran the Butterfield Overland Mail station and was the postmaster at Casa Blanca, Arizona until October 1861 when the post office was discontinued.
However a fatal dispute arose in 1870: During the second marshalship of William C. Warren, when Joe Dye was one of his deputy officers, there was great traffic in Chinese women, one of whom was kidnapped and carried off to San Diego.
A reward of a hundred dollars was offered for her return, and she was brought back on a charge of theft and tried in the Court of Justice Trafford, on Temple Street near Spring.
At a spot near the corner of Spring and Temple streets Dye shot and killed Warren; and in the scrimmage several other persons standing near were wounded.
Later, however, he himself was killed by ... , Mason Bradfield, whose life he had frequently threatened and who fired the deadly bullet from a window of the New Arlington Hotel, formerly the White House, at the southeast comer of Commercial and Los Angeles streets.