Re: 2011 DUTCH HUNTER'S RENDEZVOUS
BB,
I think you may have met James best friend. He did have dark hair. James didn't start with the diamond mine. It opened in 1972, and James started in 1978. Mr. Archer passed away January 8th, 2003 - at the mine. He found thousands of dollars worth of diamonds. If you look up Diamond James Archer (or Diamond Jim Archer) - you can see that he has some of the parks largest diamonds in such places as the Worthington Collection. He was a bit hard to understand when he spoke, but, boy, could he mine! And, every day we were there, he came up with, not one, but usually 6 or 7 diamonds. Our first trip, we started to do the "visitor" thing, and, thankfully, it was not crowded, and he said - "ya wastin time with that, come here, I show you how you wanna do it". When we left, we bought him a dinner at the local restaurant. They told us that more people bought James lunch and dinner, that he would never have to buy food again.
Just as an aside - when you go there - if the Crater of Diamonds is on your right, go past it, and, about a 1/4-1/2 mile up the road, on the left, is another campground. It also has diamonds. They found them accidentally, after they had bought the property - they wanted to make a campground there, and, they cut some trees, and when they were raking up the front yard - low and behold - diamonds. They had a red diamond there that I would die for. (way out of MY price range at the time), and I believe, the only one found (at least at that time). So, that diamond pipe spreads and hits the outside in more than one place.
When they first opened the mine (in 1972), I was in Oklahoma, and an 11 year old boy found a huge diamond. I was hooked ever since then.
The park has an interesting history, without a doubt. It was actually left - by a will - to be opened in perpetuity - to the public. Of course, the state has screwed around with that. (putting fencing around, and fencing off places, no metal detectors, and has been to court on several occasions, especially when they brought a commercial firm in - which is specifically a no-no according to the will.)
They stopped metal detectors the year that someone found a mason jar of diamonds - it went to court, the guy got to keep the diamonds, and they stopped the use of md's after that. (he detected the lid to the jar).
Beth
(both great places, but certainly a different trip). 
