The Fiddletown Journal: Stories of the Mother Lode

Edward L. Allum
Robert D. Reed Publishers (2005)
ISBN 9781885003720
Reviewed by Richard R. Blake for Reader Views (12/06)


Five men organize a small company to search for gold.  Each man invests a small sum of money to get the C.S.O. up and running.  Regular board meetings are scheduled to discuss and vote on equipment purchases, planned explorations, and to review the results of their latest outing.

Edward L. Allum, in journal form, has written these delightful stories which follow the paths of the miners of the 1849 gold rush. He details (with maps) the small mining towns in the historical mother lode country of California.

Allum makes fun of his group as they establish a pattern of weekly meeting in the club house, early morning departures, breakfast eateries, casinos, and diners. In detail he tells of the struggles of setting equipment and of panning for the gold. Adventures in Fiddletown, French Camp, Lake Topaz, Bagby, Candy Rock, Colfax, Bear River, and Colombia, each provide unique struggles, and lessons for the team members of the C. S. O.

Allum subtly introduces proven organization and management skills as a part of the C.S.O. board and relates these to their mining adventures.  It's also an example of how important this is when faced with trials, and hardship.

In the Annual Report of C.S.O. the following observation is recorded:  “Many companies spend hundreds of thousands of dollars annually to motivate and teach their executive management teams, through survival courses, to trust in their team members, knowing they won’t let you down.  If the C.S.O. finds no other gold, the real gold is in the friendships that have been formed, which will be everlasting.”

“The Fiddletown Journal” has given me the yen to study Allum’s maps, to fill the gas tank, to visit the small mining towns he has mentioned and to find the restaurants, and shops introduced in the journal.

This is an inspirational and informational book for the history enthusiast and the gold panning hobbyist.

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