About 20 years ago, I visited the Crater of Diamonds State Park in Murfreesboro Arkansas. I had no idea how to search for diamonds so I just went out into the search field and scratched through the soil. I didn’t find anything that day, but the thought that I could even find a treasure in my home state had me intrigued.

I returned a couple of years later, with my young family on vacation during the summer with a little more knowledge. I rented sifting screens and payed attention to some of the techniques shown at the visitor center. I worked the soil and brought home some washed gravel to look through and found a peculiar stone. I could not definitively say it was Quartz, so I brought it back on my next trip and to my surprise, it was a chip of a diamond! I started to visit a little more often and met several of the regular miners and began to learn the ropes about actually digging to gravel seams and tailings to find diamonds.

That led to my next find, a yellow macle shaped diamond. I was hooked. It took me a few years to get back to the mine, and I had a few visits that were fruitless. But the thrill of the hunt brings you back. Once you get a taste of success of finding your own gem, you want more. I decided to start filming my quest so that others may find some useful information about this wonderful state park.