01/19/2026
THE WORTHINGTON DIAMOND MINE IN SOUTHWEST ARKANSAS, USA (Part 7 of 14)
The Carrolls acquired the land because they believed there were diamonds on it. But they never did anything to attempt mining their 10-acre plot. In 1982, the Carrolls gave the land to their grandson and his wife, Dick and Diane Carroll.
In 1978, Glenn W. Worthington first heard there were diamonds in the USA and that you could hunt for them at a state park in Arkansas. Additionally, he was shocked to learn that people were allowed to keep all of the diamonds that they found. He immediately quit his job and drove to Southwest Arkansas where he lived in a tent for seven weeks and hunted for diamonds. He did not find any diamonds during his first three weeks of labor. Then he found ten diamonds in his last four weeks of diamond hunting. The largest was an imperfect, 1.20-carat brown. His best find was a 78-point (just over ¾ carat) flawless, yellow diamond. He then returned to Kansas, went back to a regular job, and wrote an article that was published in The Kansas City Star Magazine about his diamond-finding adventure.
In 1981, Superior Minerals (a division of The Superior Oil Company) leased the minerals rights to Twin K***s One. At this time the size and shape of this volcanic intrusion was first delineated. Twin K***s One was determined to be an elongated pipe with two lobes, oriented north-south and covered 12.356 acres. In addition to scientific study of the intrusion, geologist Mike Waldman and other employees of Superior Minerals found a few diamonds at Twin K***s One. Then, without notice or prior warning, Superior Oil closed down their minerals division and abandoned all of their geologic studies worldwide. This meant that the work Superior Minerals was doing at Twin K***s One also had to be abandoned despite their successes.
From 1992 to 1994 Texas Star picked up the option to continue the study and diamond recovery efforts at Twin K***s One. They paid the Riley Heirs $1,000 per week for three years for the right to study their land. And part of the agreement was that the Riley Heirs would be given all of the diamonds recovered during their studies.
Because Texas Star did not have access to the results of Superior Minerals’ extensive, scientific studies they started all of that geologic work all over again. Texas Star’s geologists performed extensive ground magnetic surveys and mapping. They drilled twenty-one holes and recovered thousands of feet of core taken from depth. Some were drilled on 45-degree angles in different directions to help determine the size and shape of the buried, diamond-bearing, lamproite pipe. One hole was drilled straight down ONE THOUSAND FEET!!! It is the deepest hole anyone has ever drilled in lamproite in North America. They stopped drilling at the 1,000-foot depth even though they were still bringing up lamproite core. They decided to cease drilling because it was costing them $40 per foot, and they’d already spent $40,000 on that one hole in the ground.
