The Diamond Rush
A diamond rush developed as soon as word of the find got out. In fact, the Conway hotel in Murfreesboro is said to have turned away more than 10,000 people who could not be accommodated in just one year. The Tent City of Kimberly was established between Murfreesboro and the diamond field, but nothing remains of it today.
The men who bought the Huddleston property began the Arkansas Diamond Company. However, there were 40 acres of diamond bearing soil that had not been owned by Huddleston. M.M. Mauney owned that land, and he refused to sell. Mauney tried to mine his property, and even allowed visitors to search for a fee. Finally, he sold a 3/4 interest in the property to Horace Bemis who organized the Ozark Diamond Corporation. However, Bemis died soon after, and his heirs weren't interested in diamond mining. Austin Millar and his son Howard bought Bemis' share. The Millars tried to buy out Mauney's 1/4 share but failed.
The Millars built and operated a small commercial plant that was successful until the entire installation was destroyed by arson on January 13, 1919. They were never able to rebuild.
In 1949, the first real attempt was made to open the diamond deposit to the public. The land was leased from the Millars and opened in 1951 as the Diamond Preserve of the United States. Later, the name was changed to the Crater of Diamonds and was successfully run by Mr. and Mrs. Millar. The adjacent property had passed through various owners and was in the hands of Mrs. Ethel Wilkinson of Logansport, Indiana at the time. She opened her property to the public as The Big Mine, and a fierce battle of the billboards began. During the battle of the billboards, both properties fiercely competed with one another by posting billboards. Each attraction's billboard claimed that one was better than the other, was the largest part of the deposit, and so forth.
Finally, in 1969, General Earth Minerals of Dallas, Texas bought both properties. They never operated as a commercial mine, but continued as a private tourist attraction until 1972, when the State Of Arkansas bought the land for a state park for $750,000.