Murfreesboro, Arkansas

Like many of us, John Huddleston probably didn't know a lot about rocks, other than, as a farmer, he usually preferred they not be in any field where he was planting crops. But, one day as he was walking back to the house, a pebble caught his eye. Amid the greenish-black ground beneath him, something was reflecting sunlight. It reflected the sunlight as no other pebble John had ever seen. And he could almost see clear through it! It was almost like glass. Well, it was a curiousity and as such garnered a spot in his pocket until a later date when he could have time to really examine it.

At some later time John had business to take care of in Mufreesboro, several miles away. He boarded his mule and headed down the path away from the house. There he spotted another one of these strange pebbles! That too was deposited in his pocket.

After taking care of the business in Murfreesboro, John asked around, seeking opinions about the two strange looking pebbles he had found. Nobody seemed to know what they were, but almost everybody knew who would know. That person was Charles Stifft, a jeweler in Little Rock. He knew things about stones nobody else seemed to know, but it was after all, his line of work. Well, in 1906, Little Rock was a long way from Murfreesboro. In time, the pebbles would be delivered to Mr. Stifft

Between the Huddleston farm and the town of Murfreesboro, a tent city sprang up to facilitate prospectors for whom there were simply no rooms in the local hotels. The Conway Hotel in Murfreesboro turned away approximately 100,000 persons that year.

John Huddleston finally sold his 160 acre farm and from that time on, there were several diamond companies that operated on this land. In 1972, the state of Arkansas purchased the land and opened the Crater of Diamonds State Park. Here a visitor can pay a fee and prospect for diamonds, keeping all that he/she finds.