Charlie Basham spoke about Placerville's Gold Bug Park and Mine.  He is president of the park’s nonprofit development committee.  The park's mission is to bring the California Gold Rush to life.  The park is listed on the National Register of Historic Places and as a Point of Historic Interest on the California Registry.  The park consists of 61 acres and has a Rock Museum, the Priest Mine, and miles of trails.

Charlie is looking for volunteers to engage with 7,000 students and 35,000 tourists a year from 35 countries.  Some of the marketing efforts by Charlie and other volunteers include: Offering media tours, writing newspaper articles, getting the PBS's Nova to do shows about the park and its geology, and holding a World Gold Panning Championship.

Charlie told us something about the California Gold Rush history, including that the people who got richest were not the miners, but people who sold things to the gold miners.  John Studebaker got his start by building wheelbarrows and selling them to the miners for $10 each.  He eventually went back East to Indiana to form the Studebaker car company.