A letter from a mining camp in El Dorado County indicates how important transportation was to an early-day miner. A little over two months after California was admitted to the Union, Sterling Bloom wrote his wife Elizabeth a letter from Greenwood, a mining town in El Dorado County. The Louisville post office, where Bloom hoped to receive his mail, was open sometime before July 28, 1851. Written on December 11, 1850 the letter was postmarked "Sacramento City, Cal." on December 31. Establishment of a near-by post office saved the miner a fifty-mile trip to post or pick up his mail. Named after John Greenwood's trading post, the community went through numerous name changes and spellings and had a population of about 2000 in the early 1850's, more than double the residents in 1995. Bloom wrote, "I have read it [her letter to him] a great many times over and every time with new delights. It tells me that I am not forgot, though a wanderer and a stranger in a distant land - and that I often think of thee and home, and our dear children,...for I love thee more and more as time rolls on." This golden letter carries a message of hope, longing and love far more precious than any ore ever mined in the region thanks to a primitive postal system and the men, animals and vehicles who saw to it that people stayed in touch. We here at Sacramento History Online hope that Sterling, Elizabeth and the children were reunited in life. Bloom ends with a quote, "They sin, who tell us love can die. Love is immortal, never dies."
