Murfreesboro, Arkansas is the home of Crater of Diamonds State Park. Here you can pay a nominal fee, hike out into the newly plowed field, and start digging for diamonds. You get to keep any that you find. Sounds pretty easy, until you realize, the summer heat in Arkansas can be brutal. And finding a diamond in acres of dirt is like, as the saying goes, searching for a needle in a hay stack.
But of course, we have a happy ending story. After several weeks of digging in the dirt and finding nothing, on her final day at the park, 31-year-old Micherre Fox, of Manhattan, finally found what she had been looking for, and it was just sitting right on top of the dirt. She found a 2.30-carat “near colorless” rough diamond crystal!
According to the Park, it was about two years ago that Fox decided that she needed to find her own diamond for an engagement ring. She and her partner had no budget for a diamond. As she told Wayman Cox, the park’s assistant superintendent, “You need to be willing and able to solve those problems with hard work.” So dig for her diamond was the plan.
Fox was on a month long break after finishing grad school. “I researched, and it turned out that the only place in the world to do it was right in our backyard, in Arkansas!”
By Waymon Cox
Crater of Diamonds State Park
Summer in the Park
Every day, from Tuesday, July 8th until Tuesday, July 29th, Fox headed out to the field to dig for diamonds. Three weeks had gone by, and she had found nothing, until late morning of the final day.
Oh Lucky Day
According to the Park report, “around 11 a.m. on Tuesday, July 29, her last day at the park, Fox was walking along the West Drain of the park’s 37.5-acre diamond search area when she spotted something glistening at her feet. Thinking it might be an iridescent, dew-covered spiderweb, Fox nudged it with her boot but the shine remained. Realizing it was a very shiny stone, Fox picked it up for a closer look. ‘Having never seen an actual diamond in my hands, I didn’t know for sure, but it was the most diamond-y diamond I had seen,’ she said.”
But maybe they should consider mounting the rough crystal as De Beers is doing now in the high jewelry designs.
Find No. 366
As Cox tells this story, he notes that “even when putting forth your best effort, being in the right place at the right time plays a part in finding diamonds.”
As of this report, 366 diamonds have been registered at Crater of Diamonds State Park in 2025, including 11 weighing more than one carat each.
On a personal note…
My family and I have been to the park to dig for diamonds. The temperature that day was 101 F in the shade. For Micherre Fox to spend three weeks in the summer heat digging for diamonds is a true labor of love! We lasted maybe two hours, dug up some fine quality dirt, and tried justifying the trip by saying “we’ve been to Crater of Diamonds State Park.” Of course, our 6-year old daughter was VERY disappointed to come away empty handed.
We can give you some advice if you do plan on ever going to dig for diamonds: Check the weather report and try to arrive just after a rain. According to the park, “rain washes away the lighter dirt and soil, exposing heavier rocks, minerals, and diamonds on the surface.” Also, “diamonds have a metallic luster, and the wet surface helps them sparkle and stand out against the darker, diamond-bearing soil.”
Quick facts about Crater of Diamonds State Park
Diamonds come in all colors of the rainbow. The three most common colors found at Crater of Diamonds State Park are white, brown and yellow, in that order.
In total, over 75,000 diamonds have been unearthed at the Crater of Diamonds State Park since the first diamonds were discovered in 1906 by John Huddleston, a farmer who owned the land long before it became an Arkansas State Park in 1972.
The largest diamond ever discovered in the United States was unearthed in 1924 during an early mining operation on the land that later became Crater of Diamonds State Park. 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. The Uncle Sam is now part of the Smithsonian’s mineral and gem collection and can be seen at the National Museum of Natural History.
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. It graded as ideal cut, D-colorless and flawless and was set in a platinum and 24-carat gold ring. In 1998, the state of Arkansas purchased this diamond for $34,700 in donations and placed it on permanent display at the park visitor center.
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