The Rest of our Arkansas Visit

 After our visit to the Hot Springs area, John and I traveled down to Crater of Diamonds State Park. Our daughter Melissa, husband and children, joined us there as the grandchildren had time off for spring break. This park is a 37-acre field where visitors from around the world can search for diamonds. There are other semi- precious stones to be found there, as amethyst,agate,jasper, quartz and calcite- but the chance of finding a diamond is what attracts many to the field. In this area many years ago a volcanic pipe brought many diamonds to the surface.

Diamond Field

 Yes, it is just an open field surrounded by pine trees. Over 30,000 diamonds have been found by people here since 1972. They had on display, in the visitor's center, one of them which has been mounted on a ring. It was found in 1990 and weighted 3.03 carrots. In 1998 it was certified by the American Gem Society as a perfect grade of 0/0/0 (ideal cut/color/flawless). A diamond like this is estimated to occur one time in a billion. And it is even more rare for a diamond like this coming from a non-commercial diamond mine!

Our grandson Nathan and his father Spencer spent probably a good six hours searching   for a diamond and found none. It did rain during that time, which supposedly may bring  diamonds to the surface, but that did not happen for anyone. The rain did bring down          some golf- ball size hail. So far on our spring vacation to Arkansas John and I                    experienced  snow,  hail and freezing temperatures, none of which we expected to happen at that time of the year.  However, we still had a great time in Arkansas.   

 

             

 

 On our way home back to St.Peters we had our grandson Nathan with us. We decided to show him a couple of historic areas in Arkansas to make the trip more interesting. Our first stop was at historic Washington State Park, which gave us a look into a nineteenth century community. Washington was an important stop on the Southwest Trail leading to Texas. It was a raw rainy day when we were there and Nathan was not too happy walking around some old buildings. However, the blacksmith building perked him up. The blacksmith promised him a souvenir forged from iron if he acted as his apprentice. Together they created a small leaf from an iron rod. He also showed Nathan a Bowie knife made at the shop. The first kind of this particular knife was made for Jim Bowie in Washington during the 1830s.

There is an interesting part of Arkansas history in Washington Park which I was not aware of. The Hempstead County Courthouse, pictured below, served as the state's Confederate capitol in 1863 during the Civil War. The Union Army had burned down the state's capitol in Little Rock.

There is another piece of United States history in Arkansas, which we stopped to see on our trip back, and that is the Louisiana Purchase Historic State Park in east central Arkansas. In 1682 LaSalle explored the Mississippi and declared all the lands drained by that river for France. He named the region Louisiana. The territory went to Spain in exchange for their assistance against England during the French and Indian War.  It went back to France in 1800, and then Napoleon Bonaparte sold it to the United States for $15,000,000. An official land survey was begun in 1815 to facilitate distribution of land to war veterans. Two men were commissioned to begin this survey by establishing a point from which other surveys would originate. This site went unnoticed until 1921 when two surveyors recognized a pair of large trees marked as "witness trees" by by the two men back in 1815. In 1926 the DAR dedicated a monument on this spot in commemoration of the acquisition of the Louisiana Purchase. Back then it was not a wetland. It was necessary for us to traverse a boardwalk through an upland swamp to find this National Historic Landmark. This 37.5 acre park protects a headwater swamp- a natural environment once common in the mid-South. Walking over the swamp reminded us of our time in Florida, where swamps like this one are plentiful. The granite monument of the Louisiana Purchase survey site is pictured below.