Fred W. Ludditt’s Camp Douglas: The Gold of Wells, B.C. chronicles the twentieth-century hard-rock gold mining boom that established the planned company town of Wells in the Cariboo Mountains. Ludditt details how industrial mining promoter Fred Wells spearheaded the development of the Cariboo Gold Quartz Mining Company and Island Mountain Mines during the Great Depression, extracting rich gold veins deeply embedded in the mountain bedrock above Jack of Clubs Lake. The volume documents the systematic platting of the Wells townsite, the construction of modern community halls, schools, and hospitals, and the turbulent 1937 miners' strike that shaped local union politics. By contrasting the deep-shaft industrial technology of Wells with the nineteenth-century placer operations at adjacent Barkerville and Stanley, the narrative captures the final major corporate mining era of the Cariboo region.

Barkerville (B.C.), British Columbia Wells, Cariboo (B.C.), Cariboo Gold Quartz Mining Company History, Company towns British Columbia Wells History, District of Wells, Gold mines and mining British Columbia Wells History, History, Island Mountain Mines Company History, Stanley (B.C.), Wells (B.C.) History

Includes historical photographs, corporate production charts, and mining company records.

Includes historical photographs, corporate production charts, and mining company records.