In August of 2008 news outlets and web resources like firstcoastnews announced that an Arkansas man, Dennis Tyrell, had discovered a 4.42-carat diamond in the state’s Diamonds State Park crater. The park touts itself as the only diamond resource in the world where anyone can keep the precious resources or gems that they find. Indeed, it is the only natural diamond resource that is open to the public. The park features 37 acres of gem-producing natural resources – it is a essentially a plowed field, which is the eroded surface of an ancient volcano pipe that brought diamonds to the earth’s surface some 95 million years ago.
Dennis Tyrell of Murfreesboro, Arkansas is a diamond hunter who takes about four days out of his week to comb the park’s resources. He has found several diamonds in the past, though this current one was the largest. Park employees – though not accredited estimators – say that the diamond is probably worth several thousand dollars. The largest diamond found since Crater of Diamonds State Park’s existence was a 16-carat rock. Before the location was made into a park in 1972, the largest diamond ever found was 40 carats. A rainbow variety of diamonds can be found in the park’s resources, but the most commonly found colors are white, brown, and yellow. Other minerals found in the soil at Crater or Diamonds are lamproite, amethyst, banded agate, jasper, peridot, garnet, quartz, calcite, barite, and hematite.
The park was previously a farm owned by John Huddleston, who found the first diamonds there in 1906 he was the first to find diamonds on the property. He and his wife purchased their own fifty acres for only $100, and their property lay only about a mile from the diamond site, which they purchased for $2,000 the year before Huddleston found the first diamond. Afterward, the couple accepted $360 cash for a six-month option on the property, at the purchase price of $36,000. His farm was then transformed into a diamond mine, and still shows signs of having been such, including a Mine Shaft Building, and old mining tools. Resources on the park’s website claim that no other diamond mine is as well preserved.
As recently as September 20th, 2008, a man from Michigan found a 4.68-carat white diamond, which he named “Sweet Caroline.” Last summer, a thirteen-year-old girl from Missouri, Nicole Ruhter, found a 2.93-carat diamond of a light brown character. She named hers the “Pathfinder Diamond.” Reportedly, young Ruhter stopped and prayed to find a diamond, and fifteen minutes later she was presented with one.
If for some reason visitors don’t feel like perusing the park’s diamond resources, there are other things on location for occupying time. There is a bait shop that visitors can hit up on their way to the Little Missouri River, where people have been known to catch largemouth bass and catfish. The park also offers trails that give visitors a unique tour of the park’s inimitable offerings.
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