Family discovers 2.79-carat brown diamond at Crater of Diamonds State Park using dollar-store digging tools

A family from Oklahoma visiting Crater of Diamonds State Park on Sept. 13 as part of a birthday trip found a sizeable diamond while digging with inexpensive tools bought at a dollar store, park officials said.

Raynae Madison and her nephew William spent time on the north side of the park’s 37.5-acre diamond search area, filling buckets of dirt and sifting through it with a beach-digging kit and sand-sifting tools purchased at a dollar store. After processing several buckets, Madison spotted an unusual oblong, shiny stone. “At first I thought it looked really neat, but I wasn’t sure what it was,” she said. The group then took the stone to the park’s Diamond Discovery Center, where staff identified it as a brown diamond weighing 2.79 carats.

Madison and her nephew named the stone the “William Diamond” in honor of William. The find has been described by park officials as a chocolate brown diamond with unique inclusions, a color result explained by a process called plastic deformation that creates structural defects during a diamond’s formation or movement in magma, which can reflect red and green light to produce the brown hue. The discovery also marked the third-largest diamond registered at Crater of Diamonds State Park this year.

The diamond represents one of more than 400 diamonds unearthed at Crater of Diamonds State Park this year. Only four of those found in the period weighed more than two carats, a count park officials described as unusually high. The largest diamond discovered this year at the park measured 3.81 carats and was found in April by David DeCook, a regular visitor from Minnesota. The park’s records show that the largest diamond ever found in the United States was the 40.23-carat “Uncle Sam,” unearthed at Crater of Diamonds in 1924 and now on display at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C.

Arkansas State Parks does not appraise diamonds found at Crater of Diamonds State Park; value cannot be determined until stones are cut and polished.

Since the park opened in 1972, visitors have discovered 36,824 diamonds with a total weight of 7,267 carats, according to Arkansas State Parks. Officials also note that the first diamonds in the area were discovered in 1906 by John Huddleston, a farmer who owned the land before the park opened, and they estimate that more than 75,000 diamonds have been unearthed in the broader area over time.

Emma O’Neal, the park interpreter, said 2025 has been a strong year for large finds and that brown diamonds form through a combination of geological processes that create distinctive inclusions. "These defects reflect light in ways that can make the stone appear brown," she explained. The value of any stone from Crater of Diamonds remains subject to cutting and polishing, after which appraisal may occur.