An Arkansas man visited a state park with his girlfriend. He picked up the largest diamond discovered there in 3 years

An Arkansas man who picked up what he thought was a piece of glass at a state park says he later learned his jelly bean-sized find was something much more valuable: It was a 4.87-carat diamond.

Jerry Evans visited Crater of Diamonds State Park in Murfreesboro, Arkansas, for the first time with his girlfriend last spring, he told park officials.

Evans says about 10 minutes after they arrived, he spotted what looked like glass.

Though he pocketed the pyramid-shaped find, he wasn’t sure if it was a diamond, Evans said in the release.

“It was so clear. I really didn’t know,” Evans said. “We were picking up everything thinking it was a diamond.”

Crater of Diamonds, which became a state park in 1972, is known as a source of diamonds from their original volcanic source, according to park officials.

After later returning home about 250 miles away in Lepanto, Arkansas, Evans says he pondered whether the small object could be something more than glass, so he sent it to the Gemological Institute of America for help identifying it.

The nonprofit California-based institute specializes in gem and jewelry research and education, according to its website.

(Jerry Evans, who found a 4.87-carat diamond at Crater of Diamonds State Park in Arkansas, has named his discovery the Evans Diamond. - From Arkansas State Parks)

Evans heard back from the institute a few weeks later, when they informed him he had found a near-colorless diamond, according to the release.

“When they called and told me it was real, I was tickled to death!” he said.

Park visitors find an average of one to two diamonds there daily, and 798 diamonds totaling more than 125 carats have been registered at the park in 2023, according to the release.

More than 75,000 diamonds have been discovered at Crater of Diamonds since the first diamonds were found in the area of Pike County, where the park is located, in the early 1900s, according to the park’s website.

Ref: An Arkansas man visited a state park with his girlfriend. He picked up the largest diamond discovered there in 3 years (cnn)