Mena woman finds nice ice at Crater of Diamonds
MURFREESBORO, Ark. — Saturday was a gem for Beatrice Watkins, 56, of Mena, Arkansas.
Within 30 minutes of walking into Crater of Diamonds State Park with her daughter and granddaughters she had found a “shiny” stone but she didn’t get too excited. She thought it was just iron pyrite. She tossed it in her bag and kept on looking for the real deal.
This is what visitors do at the 37.5-acre plowed field atop the eroded surface of an extinct, diamond-bearing volcanic pipe that doubles as a park. They sift through the dig for diamonds.
Watkins told park officials she was dry sifting soil on the north end of a culvert near the center of the park’s diamond search area when she discovered her gem.
“I thought it was shiny but had no idea it was a diamond!” she said, “My daughter Googled similar-looking stones and thought it might have been iron pyrite, so I stuck it in my sack and kept sifting.”
About an hour later, Watkins and her family walked to the park’s Diamond Discovery Center to take a break. It was then the staff identified Watkins’s finds and informed her that her “iron pyrite” was actually a brown diamond weighing more than two carats.
“I was so excited, I just couldn’t believe it,” Watkins said. “I still can’t believe it!”
She also still can’t believe she had unknowingly picked up the largest diamond found there so far this year.
According to Park Interpreter Waymon Cox, Watkins’s diamond is about the size of an English pea, with an oblong shape and a metallic luster. The surface is smooth and rounded. It is a characteristic shared by most Crater diamonds.
“It has a dark brown shade similar to iced tea,” Cox said.
Watkins’s gem is the largest found at the park since Pat Choate, of Jacksonville, Arkansas, found a 3.29-carat brown gem in October 2019.
More than 33,000 diamonds have been found since the Crater of Diamonds opened as an Arkansas State Park in 1972. Typically, one or two diamonds are found each day.
Cox said that even though it rained Saturday morning, Watkins found her diamond by dry sifting.
“Many visitors use screens to dry sift where they sit in the field,” he said. “If the soil gets too damp, dry sifting doesn’t work very well because it clumps together in the screens.”
Many people choose to name the diamonds they find at Crater of Diamonds State Park. Watkins named her gem after herself, calling it the Lady Beatrice. She said she doesn’t know what she will do with her diamond at this point but will probably keep it as an inheritance for her kids and grand kids.
During the sifting before she fold the diamond, “I told my granddaughters that their future husbands would have to bring them here to find diamonds for their wedding rings,” Watson said. “All that time I had one in my pocket!”
Etc.
At the time of this find, 139 diamonds have been registered at Crater of Diamonds State Park in 2020, weighing more than 22 carats, with four of them weighing at least one carat each.
The largest diamond ever discovered in the United States was unearthed here in 1924 during an early mining operation, park officials say. Named the Uncle Sam, this white diamond with a pink cast weighed 40.23 carats. It was later cut into a 12.42-carat emerald shape and purchased by a private collector for $150,000 in 1971.
Another well-known diamond from the park is the Strawn-Wagner. Found in 1990 by Murfreesboro resident Shirley Strawn, this 3.03-carat white gem was cut into a round brilliant shape weighing 1.09 carats. In 1998 the State of Arkansas purchased this diamond for $34,700 in donations and placed it on permanent display at the visitor center here.
(Crater of Diamonds State Park is located on Arkansas Highway 301 in Murfreesboro. It is one of 52 state parks administered by Arkansas State Parks.)