page_title: Crater of Diamonds State Park
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Crater of Diamonds State Park / History
caption_attribution_description: English: A supplement to the Nashville News newspaper (Nashville, Arkansas, USA), promoting diamond mining. Diamonds were found in nearby Murfreesboro in 1906.
context_page_description: Crater of Diamonds State Park is a 911-acre Arkansas state park in Pike County, Arkansas, in the United States. The park features a 37.5-acre plowed field, the world's only diamond-bearing site accessible to the public. Diamonds have continuously been discovered in the field since 1906, including the Strawn-Wagner Diamond. The site became a state park in 1972 after the Arkansas Department of Parks and Tourism purchased the site from the Arkansas Diamond Company and Ozark Diamond Mines Corporation, who had operated the site as a tourist attraction previously.
context_section_description: In August 1906, John Huddleston found two strange crystals on the surface of his 243-acre (98 ha) farm near Murfreesboro, Arkansas.  The following month, Huddleston and his wife, Sarah, sold an option on the 243 acres (98 ha) to a group of Little Rock investors headed by banker-attorney Samuel F. (Sam) Reyburn, who undertook a careful, deliberate test of the property.
  After 1906, several attempts at commercial diamond mining failed.  The only significant yields came from the original surface layer, where erosion over a long period of time had concentrated diamonds.  In the early period, 1907–1932, yields from this "black gumbo" surface material often exceeded thirty carats per hundred loads (50 mg/Mg) (standard 1600-pound tramload of the early period).  Highest yields from the undisturbed subsurface material (described as kimberlite or volcanic breccia by the U.S. Geological Survey) were two carats per hundred loads (3.5 mg/Mg) in 1908 and about two carats per hundred short tons (4.4 mg/Mg) in 1943−1944.
  Because equipment of the early period usually included bottom screens with mesh larger than 1/16 inch (1.6 mm), thousands of smaller diamonds were allowed to pass through. The bulk of these ended up in drainage cuts of varying depths all over the field and in the big natural drains on the east and west edges of the diamond-bearing section of the volcanic deposit (approximately 35 acres (14 ha) of volcanic breccia on the east side of the 80-acre (32 ha) pipe).  In recent decades, those small diamonds have been the bread-and-butter of recreational diamond digging.
  Soon after the first diamond was found, a "diamond rush" created a boomtown atmosphere around Murfreesboro.  According to old tales, hotels in Murfreesboro turned away 10,000 people in the space of a year.  Supposedly, these aspiring diamond miners formed a tent city near the mine, which was named "Kimberly" in honor of the famous Kimberley diamond district in South Africa.  On the other hand, all available evidence indicates that the Town of Kimberly originated as a land-development venture in 1909, initiated by Mallard M. Mauney and his oldest son, Walter, on their land immediately south of Murfreesboro.  The project failed soon afterward as the speculative boom generated by the diamond discovery collapsed.  Today, the Kimberly area is almost all cow pasture, owned by Mauney's descendants.
  During the Second World War, the U.S. government took over the mine and granted a contract to Glen Martin to extract this rare war material.  Although diamonds were obtained, and the concentration of diamonds similar to other producing mines, this was not fully successful as a venture due to the large costs involved with U.S. labor.  After the war, the property was returned to the previous owners.  From 1951 to 1972, the crater hosted several private tourist attractions.  The first, The Diamond Preserve of the United States, lasted only about one year.  In late 1951, Howard A. Millar stepped in and salvaged the infant tourist industry. In April 1952, Millar and his wife, Modean, launched their Crater of Diamonds attraction. Howard Millar, an accomplished writer and promoter, stirred unprecedented national publicity and drew enough visitors to sustain the operation. In March 1956, a visitor found the Star of Arkansas on the cleared surface. The rare beauty weighed 15.33 carats (3.066 g). Later, Roscoe Johnston opened a rival tourist attraction, the Arkansas Diamond Mine, on the main part of the diamond field.
  The rivalry between the two tourist operations left both in a weakened position. In 1970, the entire volcanic formation was consolidated by a private partnership, which then reassigned the property to General Earth Minerals (GEM) of Dallas, Texas. GEM expected to turn the property over for a profit, but ended up heavily indebted to GF Industries (GFI) of Dallas. Upon default, GFI took the property in July 1971.
  GEM consolidated the tourist operation as well as the property. GFI continued the attraction until it sold the 80-acre (32 ha) volcanic formation and some 800 acre
caption: A supplement to the Nashville News of nearby Nashville, Arkansas, advertising diamonds mining in the early 1900s
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