George Chorpenning

Who is George Chorpenning?

George W. Chorpenning Jr. was a pioneer in the transportation of mail, freight, and passengers through the arid and undeveloped western regions of the United States. His efforts in the 1850s were vital to the integration of the then-new state of California with the established government and economy east of the Mississippi River.

George Chorpenning was born in 1820 in Somerset, Pennsylvania, the son of a county judge. In 1850 he traveled to California in search of gold. Disappointed, he realized that there was a critical need for fast and reliable mail service between California and the eastern states, most of which was then being transported by sea.

He teamed up with Absolam Woodward and, in April 1851, received a contract from the U.S. Post Office to provide monthly transport of the mail between Sacramento and Salt Lake City, the most difficult leg of the first "overland" mail service. Within months Woodward had died from an attack along the Humboldt River.