An Arkansas man finds a 4.87-carat diamond in Crater of Diamonds State Park

(CNN) — An Arkansas man thought he picked up a piece of glass in a public park. However, he later discovered that his bean-sized find was something much more valuable: 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.

According to the man, about 10 minutes after arriving at the scene, he saw what looked like glass a few meters away on top of a plowed hill, according to a press release.

Evans said in the statement that although the find was in the shape of a pyramid, he was not sure if it was a diamond.

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

The Diamond Crater, which was named a state park in 1972, is known as a place for diamonds for their original volcanic source, according to park officials.

After returning home about 250 miles away in Lepanto, Arkansas, Evans says he wondered if the small object might be something other than glass, so he sent it to the Gemological Institute of America for help identifying it.

The California-based nonprofit 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, called his find the “Evans Diamond.” (Credit: Arkansas State Parks)

Evans received a response from the institute a few weeks later, informing him that he had found an almost colorless diamond, according to the statement.

He said: “When they called me and told me it was real, I died of excitement!”

Evans later contacted the park about the discovery. Their diamond became the largest found in the park since Labor Day 2020, when Kevin Kennard of Maumelle, Arkansas, found a 9.07-carat brown diamond there, according to officials.

“While I receive a lot of emails from people wanting me to identify something they found here, as I recall, this is the first time anyone has contacted me after the Gemological Institute identified the diamond,” park official Waymon Cox said. In the statement.

Visitors to the park find one or two diamonds daily on average, and in 2023, 798 diamonds totaling more than 125 carats were recorded in the park, according to the statement.

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