E. C. Loomis is Edward Christopher Loomis, though he chose to use Columbus for his middle name. He was a pilot on the steam ships that plied the waters of Alaska and also around the world.

Most likely, Ruby was one of the stops on the river and mail would have been held there for him which he would pick up whenever docked there.

He was born in 1865 in Portland, Oregon, the son of an Oregon Trail pioneer, the family coming out west in 1844, the second year of the Trail.

Though he was raised on a farm, he chose to leave at an early age and began work on Steamships in the Portland area.

He married in Portland and had two children, the family moved to Seattle in 1901, but he was away aboard ship most of the time. He retired in the thirties and passed away at Redmond WA. in the late forties.