Navy reservist Jack Pearadin pulled a massive yellow diamond from Arkansas park gravel on a livestream and shook with joy as value estimates climbed toward $1 million.
On Jan. 25, the longtime gem hunter was processing a bucket of gravel collected weeks earlier at Crater of Diamonds State Park when a flash of color stopped him cold. He was about eight feet away, turned back, and saw the stone glowing from the center of the pile.
Fox News Digital reported that Pearadin dug nearly to the bottom to free it. The nearly square, golden-yellow diamond weighed 6.03 carats. He named it the “American Dream.”
He had been searching the park since 2013. The find was large enough that his hands started to shake on camera.
Pearadin told The Associated Press some collectors put the stone as high as $1 million. A certified gem appraiser in Little Rock offered a more grounded figure for a high-quality six-carat yellow diamond from the same ground: about $250,000.
In late December, Pearadin and his friend Michael Schumacher gathered gravel from the park’s public search area. A winter storm had coated the ground with more than an inch of ice, making the work slow and messy.
Schumacher was traveling when Pearadin later ran the material at home and went live on TikTok. Viewers watched the reaction in real time as the stone came free.
Pearadin said:
"I turned back and saw [the gem] glowing from the center of the pile."
He added:
"I had to go almost to the bottom of the pile to pull it out, it was so big. I was shaking!"
On the livestream he shouted, “Oh my God! Oh my God!” and “We got a big one!”
Breitbart noted the stone is the largest diamond recovered at the park this year. Pearadin plans to split any profits with Schumacher and still hopes the payday helps him open his own crystal mine.
He has already sold most of the smaller diamonds he has found over the years through online sales. He moved to nearby Murfreesboro so he could keep hunting. “I love it that much,” he said.
Arkansas State Parks staff confirmed the Jan. 25 discovery and the late-December gravel collection. Their job is narrow and practical.
An official explained the limits clearly:
"Our primary training involves properly identifying and registering diamonds for guests who find them."
Park employees are not trained to grade or appraise diamonds or other minerals. Guests who want a value or quality grade are told to hire a certified gemologist.
Laura Stanley, a certified gem appraiser in Little Rock, put the American origin of these stones in plain terms for the AP.
Stanley said:
"They are their own entity. It’s the only place in America where you can go find your own diamond, and you can’t compare that to a diamond from anywhere else."
The New York Post reported that visitors pay a modest day fee and keep what they find, a setup that has produced more than 37,000 diamonds since 1972, including the record 40-carat Uncle Sam. Pearadin himself has pulled more than 300 gems from the same ground over more than a decade of steady work.
That public-access model still rewards patience and grit more than connections. It is the same open lane that lets ordinary families build serious wealth without waiting on Wall Street or Silicon Valley.
Park officials have announced additional notable finds this year. A Pennsylvania woman recovering from loss uncovered a 3.09-carat diamond during the summer. On Aug. 29 they publicized a 2.29-carat yellow diamond recovered by a Tennessee grandfather.
That grandfather’s quick score after a short search is another reminder the field is still live, much like the 2.29-carat yellow diamond found after half an hour at the identical Arkansas site.
A photo Pearadin later shared shows Brian Busse holding the 6.03-carat stone on Aug. 9, 2026, in Buena Vista, Colorado. The image circulated as the story widened beyond the original livestream.
Pearadin’s own arc runs longer than a single lucky bucket. He kept showing up for more than a decade, relocated to stay close to the search area, and treated the hobby like real work. Decades of quiet pursuit still pay off for people who refuse to quit, whether the prize is a diamond or a long-delayed personal goal like fulfilling a six-decade creative dream.
Value talk will keep swinging between the collectors’ million-dollar chatter and Stanley’s $250,000 benchmark until a formal sale or certified appraisal settles the number. Ownership and the exact split with Schumacher remain Pearadin’s stated plan, not a filed contract on the public record.
What is already clear is the setting: a state park that still lets Americans dig, keep what they find, and walk out with a stone no lab can fully copy. The Navy reservist who spotted the glow in the gravel did not wait for a grant, a subsidy, or a permission slip from the cultural gatekeepers. He kept sifting.
In a country that still leaves room for that kind of stubborn effort, the American Dream is not a slogan on a brochure. Sometimes it is a yellow diamond at the bottom of a bucket.
