Diamond Mining in Arkansas: Get Cold, Get Muddy, Stay Poor

by Katie Franco (United States of America)

A leap into the unknown USA

“No, over there. Under the tree roots. Maybe they’ve been holding their treasures until this very moment!” In our continuing quest to hit all 50 states, my boyfriend and I were now in Arkansas. Only a few days earlier we had been worried that there wasn’t anything compelling us to hit the Natural State in icy November other than our checklist, but I had stumbled upon the one thing you can do in Arkansas that you can’t do anywhere else in the United States: mine for—and keep—your own diamonds. Obligingly, Rick grabbed our rented blue bucket and clomped through the mud to the roots, while I supervised and planned my future diamond-studded accessories. Crater of Diamonds The little-known Crater of Diamonds State Park is nestled in Murfreesboro, about an hour east of Hot Springs. We pulled our rental car in to the visitor center parking lot one Saturday morning, ready to get dirty and woefully unprepared for how cold it would be. I begged the knitted Peruvian llamas on my sweater to keep me warm, we rented some basic sifting equipment, and away we went. Rick and I are travel fiends. We’ll try just about anything: dog-sledding in Montana, halibut fishing in Alaska, and—riskiest of all—wine tasting in Maine. We’re constantly flinging ourselves to new regions and new adventures, but Crater of Diamonds was our first chance to actually return with something of value (believe me, the Maine wines did not make the cut). It had rained the night before, which is generally a good time for the park’s brown, yellow, and white diamonds to be found on the surface of the field. Make no mistake, these are industrial diamonds: no one is really putting them in a ring after they find one, but what a great way to experience a new state, right? The park was filled with families in rain boots out to have a good time. It was such a fun atmosphere—ten year old boys bring ALL the enthusiasm to rock hunting (more than once we heard, “Dang it, Ethan! I paid a $45 deposit! You can NOT do that to the buckets!”). We found a quiet area undoubtedly chock full of expensive diamonds and began sifting. How to Mine, Sort of The park rented us a small shovel, 5-gallon plastic bucket, and small and large sifter. We each bought a pair of waterproof gloves that offered zero assistance in staying warm but were invaluable in staying dry. After that, we were on our own. We picked a spot where diamonds might be freshly exposed after the rain and scanned for jewels like the freezing-cold novices we were. Nothing jumped out at us, but we commandeered a puddle to do our own wet sifting—a clever and efficient move that ultimately proved fruitless. After the puddle failed to produce a diamond worthy of retirement, we followed the rainwater through plowed furrows to look for anything sparkly-but-not-sharp-and-not-muddy-but-not-see-through. It’s exhausting and dirty work, trying to extract your future from the ground! Mostly, though, we messed around, trying to stay warm and keeping our eyes open for anything that might glisten in those brief moments when the sun peeked through. We took a bucket of mud over to the sluicing baths in order to properly wet-sift our loot. I think you can guess that we were pretty low-key diamond hunters, but some people take this very, very seriously. Those people may have found brown diamonds, but they weren’t nearly as focused on where they’d go for lunch, so who won that day, huh? Huh? In all honesty, those real miners probably did. We left empty-handed and went back to Murfreesboro to eat lunch, arriving during a power outage. We ate enormous burgers in the dark and then took our muddy selves to Little Rock. But we really did have a great time. Casual effort is our thing! We love caring deeply about a hobby we’ll never do again! We may have come out without any diamonds, but it was a genuinely fun day. Like Rick said, “it’s the same odds as gambling, but at least we’re outdoors.”