For Raynae Madison and her family from Cookson, OK, a nephew’s birthday celebration turned into the adventure of a lifetime when they unearthed a 2.79-carat brown diamond at Arkansas’ Crater of Diamonds State Park in Murfreesboro on September 13.
Armed with little more than a beach digging kit and sand sifters purchased at a dollar store, the family picked a spot near the Prospector Trailhead in the park’s 37.5-acre search field. After filling a few buckets and carefully sifting through the dirt, Madison spotted an oblong, shiny stone.
“At first I thought it looked really neat, but I wasn’t sure what it was,” she said. “I honestly thought it was too big to be a diamond!”
They brought the gem to the park’s Diamond Discovery Center, where staff confirmed it as a 2.79-carat chocolate-brown diamond with distinctive inclusions. The family named it the “William Diamond” in honor of Madison’s nephew.
According to park interpreter Emma O’Neal, brown diamonds from Crater of Diamonds often owe their color to “plastic deformation,” a natural process that creates structural defects within the crystal lattice. These imperfections reflect red and green light, which combine to produce the diamond’s warm hue.
Arkansas diamonds often look like pebbles or polished stones, with rounded edges and surfaces. This is in contrast to the more classic, sharp, octahedral crystal shape of rough diamonds from other regions. Arkansas diamonds have a brilliant, reflective and metallic-like shine. This luster helps them stand out against the darker soil, especially after a rainfall.
The William Diamond ranks as the third-largest diamond found at the park this year.
“[It] has been a great year for large diamond finds,” O’Neal said. “So far, we have registered four diamonds weighing over two carats.”
As of mid-September, 403 diamonds have been registered at the park in 2025. Since the first diamonds were discovered in 1906 by farmer John Huddleston, more than 75,000 diamonds have been unearthed on the site. In 1972, the land officially became Crater of Diamonds State Park, the only public diamond-producing site in the world where visitors can keep what they find.
The park has produced some of the most celebrated diamonds in American history, including the 40.23-carat “Uncle Sam” diamond discovered in 1924 — still the largest diamond ever found in the U.S. — and the celebrated 3.03-carat Strawn-Wagner, later graded as a D-flawless “perfect” diamond and now on display at the park’s visitor center. The Uncle Sam diamond is now part of the Smithsonian's mineral and gem collection and can be seen at the National Museum of Natural History in Washington, DC.
For Madison and her family, the William Diamond is a sparkling reminder of a special weekend spent together — and proof that with a little luck and persistence, anyone can take home a piece of history from Crater of Diamonds State Park.
Credits: Images courtesy of Arkansas State Parks.