Diamond James Archer - Part Two

“One morning several years back,   I was out here in the parking lot getting ready to go in one morning, soons’ it opened. A man started talking to me, telling me he was here to find the largest diamond he could, and buy it for his fiance’ for her engagement ring.  I told him I didn’t have any diamonds on me now, but maybe  you’ll find one today.” James went on to say, “A lot of folks talk big like that. But when it comes down to it, they don’t have the money to back up their talk.”

James continued his story. “So the park opened  it’s doors, and we both went in and bought our ticket, and went into the mine. When we got to the search area, he turned left and I turned right. I only went a couple of hundred feet before I saw something shining at me.  I went over and picked it up. It was a big, canary diamond, sitting right on top of the ground. I shouted, Hey, Mister! I got a big one for ya’. The man came over, said he wanted to buy it as soon as he saw it. He asked, How much ya’ want for it?” James told me, “I didn’t even know how much it weighed, and I usually set my price on that. So I just said, $7000. Then that fella reached in his pocket, and pulled out a huge roll of money. He counted out 70 100 dollar bills into my hand. When he was finished, that man’s roll looked as big as it did when he started peeling bills off’a there.  I said to myself, I shoulda’   said $10,000. But I didn’t know he really had the money. The man took the diamond and never registered it at the park office. I heard from him later, and he’d had it cut and set in that ring. He said the jeweler weighed it before it was cut and it was 7.9 carats.”

 A lot of people have been wondering for a long time about just how  well  James has done. Tourists have been trying to pry that out of him six days a week for 30 years. Most people don’t like having people trying to get information about their business, and James was no different. We do know he never lived in a mansion, or bought a new truck. When tourists ask, “Is it true all your children graduated from college?”  James just said, “That’s what they say.” When asked later how many children he had, he said, “seven.” Is it true they all graduated college? “Yep. And my wife will graduate college this year.” Seems James did not invest his money in himself, but invested in his family’s future.

On Wednesday, January 8, 2003, James Archer went into the Crater of Diamonds State Park as he had for thirty years.  And, at the age of 77, he died there doing what he loved, digging for diamonds.  The Crater will probably never see a more diligent, consistent, determined prospector than Diamond James Archer. And I feel fortunate to have had the opportunity to work alongside James, and learn much about diamond hunting, and about life, if only for three days, which, coincidentally, is also the total number of diamonds I have ever found. I tell my  friends, “I am the best trained, hardest working, and best equipped of all the non-producers at the mine.” I once worked 30 days one winter, with my total find being one diamond and a few small nuggets of gold. (The park superintendent refused to believe I found the gold there, declaring, “There is NO gold in THIS park.” But God and I both know I did.) On the last day that winter, Grandson Jordan came with me. At the end of the day, he declared, “Papaw, anything we do for fun can never be this hard.” Wise words from a young man. I ached all over, and my overworked body was breaking down. I hung up my shovel and screens, and have never been back. I don’t plan for constant pain to be my constant partner in my old age, if I can help it. But I’m not dead yet, so my life collection of diamonds just might not be totally complete.

I did have some interesting experiences along the way.  Once Henry Emison was working along the creek. A group of Texas hunters had been working on the other side for two days. On Sunday, they got into a vein of very rich fine sand, and they found it very deep, an old sand bar from eons past. They started finding one diamond after another, but they were about worn out, and they had to leave that day. Knowing Henry was a total digging machine, they crossed the creek and made a deal with Henry. If he would dig with them, they would share the diamonds found. At the end of the day, Henry had five very nice diamonds. Henry called me that night, told me all about it, but he could not go back the next day, he had to go to work. He described exactly where the glory hole was, and, quite naturally, I was there, ready to dig, the next day. But as luck would have it, an old full timer had already taken over that spot. He dug there for days, and would never reveal how many he found. After he had finished, I was over there on a very rainy day. I told a group of college boys who were there about the twenty some-odd diamonds taken from that hole in one day. That hole was chest deep in water now, however. Later I came back by that hole, and the college boys were diving down, pulling out two handfuls of sand at a time. There is no limit to which one bitten by the diamond bug will go to try to find a diamond.

As I worked one day, a northern tourist, new to the mine walked about, just looking at the ground. He came over to where I was digging, and started telling me how easy it was to find a diamond. He Said, “Yesterday, I just walked around, and found ten diamonds, right on top of the ground.” Did you get them positively identified at the office? I asked. “No, but I identified them myself on the internet.” I wanted to tell him, if he would bring any two of those diamonds to the park, get a positive ID, I would kiss his butt at high noon in the middle of that field, and give him an hour to draw a crowd. I WANTED to tell him that, but he was a big man. So I didn’t.   There’s just a lot of quartz and other stones on that field that can LOOK like a diamond.

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*Some info about James Archer for this post came from  -  A thorough and accurate History of Genuine Diamonds in Arkansas, written by Glen W. Worthington. Published by Mid America Prosprecting,  Murfreesboro, Ar. 71958