A family outing to Arkansas’s Crater of Diamonds State Park turned into a remarkable discovery for Tennessee grandfather Barry G. Smith, who unearthed a 2.29-carat canary yellow diamond while searching with his wife and two granddaughters on August 16.
Smith, of Germantown, TN, had brought Sage and Juniper to the Murfreesboro-area park as part of a weeklong family trip. The group rented a hand-pulled wagon and basic prospecting equipment and headed into the park’s 37½-acre search field, where amateur miners get to keep what they find at the only diamond site in the world that’s open to the general public.
About 30 minutes into the search, Smith spotted something glimmering in the East Drain area of the diamond field.
“I thought it was mica,” Smith said, referring to a glittery — but common — yellow mineral found in the search area. Smith tucked the stone into his shirt pocket, hoping it might be quartz or, perhaps, a diamond, and continued searching with his granddaughters until around noon.
The surprise came when he brought the stone to the park’s Diamond Discovery Center. Staff inspected the specimen and confirmed what Smith had hoped — but hardly expected — to hear. He had found a 2.29-carat canary yellow diamond, about the size of a black-eyed pea.
“I never expected to find a diamond here,” Smith said. “The potential was there, but you never come here expecting to find one.”
Was he excited by the news?
“Oh, absolutely!” Smith said.
The discovery ranks as the third-largest diamond registered at Crater of Diamonds State Park in 2026, following a 6.03-carat yellow diamond found in January and a 3.09-carat white diamond discovered in April.
“I was dumbfounded when I first saw the diamond,” park facility supervisor Ralph Hall said, underscoring just how striking Smith's stone was.
Yellow diamonds are particularly noteworthy at the park because they are less common than white and brown stones. Historical park statistics show that about 62% of the diamonds found there have been white, 20% brown and 17% yellow, with just over 1% falling into other categories. The yellow color occurs when nitrogen becomes incorporated into a diamond’s crystal structure during its formation.
As is customary with large discoveries at the park, Smith decided to name the diamond. It is now officially called the Sage Juniper Diamond, honoring his two granddaughters.
The find adds to an extraordinary 54-year history at Crater of Diamonds. Since the park opened in 1972, visitors have registered more than 37,000 diamonds, with an average of one to two diamonds discovered each day. In 2026 alone, 351 diamonds had been registered as of the announcement of Smith’s find.
The park’s search field is unusual even by diamond-mining standards. Rather than digging deep underground, visitors search the exposed, eroded surface of an ancient diamond-bearing kimberlite pipe — the volcanic rock formation that carried diamonds toward Earth’s surface millions of years ago.
Credits: Images courtesy of Arkansas State Parks.