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Diamond Jim Archer spent 30
years at the Crater of Diamonds State park, digging for diamonds. He worked very hard, very
fast, very long, every day, for thirty years. Though I have no doubt that his record can never be equaled, I did meet one other man who compared to
James in many of these categories, except that he always kept a full time job
otherwise, and he’s still raising a family, so he does not get to go every day.
Henry Emison and his wife Lori were
digging away when I met them. They were beginners at that time, but they quickly
changed all that. Henry was recognized quickly by all other diamond hunters on
the field as a digging machine, a true man among men. He could work all day at
his job landscaping, then drive to the mine and do as much work as we fully
human diggers could do in a day. Of course, he quickly found a lot of diamonds.
At one time, they moved to my rental house in Gurdon, Arkansas, partially
because they loved that 120 year old, six bedroom brick house. But mostly because
it was close to the diamonds. What is it about rare, driven men like Jim and
Henry that makes supermen out of them when they step onto that diamond field? I
wish I knew. I would buy up a few gallons of it and enhance my own diamond
collection a bit. Henry moved to the other side of Arkansas, because that was
where his job was, a few years ago. But I know he’s still not out of range of
that diamond mine, so we still don’t know how his lifetime collection will
look.
After I moved to Arkadelphia, Arkansas,
only 45 minutes from the mine, I worked 30 days one winter, my longest,
hardest, and least productive stretch of diamond fever. I was digging deep
holes and washing out the mud, which is very hard work. My body ached all day
every day, and some days I had to break through very thick ice in the washing tank to wash my mud. I was
carrying the mud in two five gallon buckets at least 100 yards. My total find
was one diamond and a few small nuggets of gold. I told my friends, “I am the
best trained, hardest working, and best equipped of all the non-producers at
the mine.”
I
was talking to a fellow worker who, at that time, was well known at the park
for finding a very large diamond right on the surface. I had just gotten
started digging at a new site, when he walked up. I don’t remember his name,
which is not an unusual thing for me. He stood there and watched me dig for a
few moments, then said, “I was working that spot some time back. I got into a
vein of fine black sand. After digging into that vein for a while, I washed out
several nuggets of gold.”
I continued digging there for some time.
Then, I too started washing out black sand, and in it I started noticing small,
paper thin strips of gold. After collecting several, the vein disappeared, and
I never hit it again. I placed the small thin strips in water in a small
bottle. When I came back to look at the strips a few days later, the strips had
rolled up into small nuggets.
(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.)
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 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 you will bring
any one of those diamonds to the
park office, and get a positive ID, I will kiss your butt at high noon in the middle
of that field, and give you an hour to draw a crowd. I wanted to tell him that, but he was a big man. So I didn’t. There’s a lot of quartz and other stones on that field that can look like a diamond.
A young man from Iowa started digging
along about the time I started my hardest winter. We both went many days
without finding a diamond. But when he did, he quickly went back to Iowa, sold
all his stuff. He moved back to the mine, living just outside the fence in a
tent. I’m not sure how many diamonds he found. Word was, he found some really
nice stones along the way. Every day I went over there that winter, he was hard
at work, digging deep holes, washing the sand out, and filling the holes back
up the same day, as is now required. I fully expect that young man will someday
leave that mine as an old man, his body totally broken down. Or, like Diamond
Jim, he will die there.
During that long winter, an old man moved
in next to my claim. He was a very old man, and his equipment was very extensive,
yet very old. I soon learned that many years ago, he had started finding so
many diamonds one summer that he became famous. His collection was very
extensive, and pictures were still up in the visitor’s center of that man. This old man dug very hard beside me for many
days. Yet, according to him, he never found any diamonds. He did tell me many
stories about his famous summer, many years ago. He said he became so famous
that summer that three different women approached him, begging him to go into
the woods with them. Famous or not, that just seemed entirely too easy.
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 full-time 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. And, I have the specialized
equipment constructed and ready, just waiting to put it into action, when the
right time comes. I’ll have a great time then. Once stricken, one is never totally
cured of diamond fever
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