“George Chorpenning and Absalom Woodward signed [a U.S. mail contract] in February 1851, to carry the mail from [Salt Lake City] to Sacramento, California.This put the United States mail in operation from end to end of the Central Route for the first time. On May 1 of that year Chorpenning left Sacramento with a party of men for the first trip. In the high Sierra they encountered snow so deep that they had to pound it down with wooden mauls so that the animals could travel. Through sixteen days and nights they toiled and camped under those conditions.
When summer came they experienced difficulties with the Indians. In November Woodward by a war party west of the Malad River in Western Utah. In December the carriers were compelled to turn back on account of deep snow. the mail for February 1852, was routed through Feather River Pass and arrived at Salt Lake City in sixty days. The horses had frozen to death in the Goose Creek Mountains and the party had to travel the last two hundred miles on foot. In March the mail was sent by water to San Pedro, and thence through Cajon Pass and up the Mormon Trail to its destination. . . .
In 1854 . . . [t]he route was changed to run from San Diego to Salt Lake City . . .”