Great Diamond Rush kicks off Wednesday

A diamond rush can be expected in Yuma County this week. Beginning Wednesday, residents will be able to hunt for seven large glass diamonds hidden around the county that they can keep as souvenirs of the Arizona Centennial.

Yuma County and the Yuma Sun have partnered to promote the upcoming Yuma County Centennial Celebration. Along with the Caballeros de Yuma, the county will host a celebration marking Arizona's 100th anniversary at the Yuma Main Library at 6 p.m. Feb. 10.

County officials will seal a time capsule and unveil the new Centennial Heritage Area between the Main Library and Yuma Catholic High School. Festivities will include a tri-tip meal for $7 per plate, music by the Treehouse Pipers, and fireworks. Tickets are available at the Friends of the Library Bookstore in the Yuma Main Library. For more information on ticket sales, call 373-6519.

The new Heritage Area includes an interpretive section representing the seven significant aspects that have shaped the area's cultural image over the past 100 years. The symbolic areas include transportation, recreation, agriculture, military, the territorial prison, the crossing and the river confluence.

During the Diamond Rush week, the baseball-sized glass diamonds, which have a solitaire-like cut with the Yuma County-Arizona Centennial logo, will be hidden within the seven areas.

Beginning on Wednesday, the Yuma Sun will publish one story per day for seven days, highlighting the historical significance of one of the locations that represents Yuma's culture.

After the publication of the stories, the Yuma Sun's Twitter account will release the latitude GPS coordinates of the location of the diamonds each day.

At the same time, the Yuma County Twitter account will release the longitudinal coordinates of the exact positions.

The first person to find a diamond keeps it and will have the opportunity to present the diamond at the centennial celebration for a photograph to be added to the time capsule.

Kevin Tunell, the county's public relations director, said the idea came from an article in the Yuma Sun about the area's “diamond rush” in 1871.

“Brian (Longoria) of the communications team and I were trying to come up with fun ways to expose people to the seven areas to be dedicated,” Tunell said.

“And I thought it would be a pretty good way to incorporate social media, which is becoming more and more popular,” he added.

Tunell said he and his daughter regularly go geocaching, a treasure hunting game that uses GPS to hide and find containers.

The diamonds will be within a foot of the exact GPS coordinates.

“They won't have to walk far,” Tunell said. “It will be a little work but not so hard they won't be able to find the diamonds.”

The diamonds will have instructions as to what the finder should do next.

As Tunell noted, this isn't the first diamond rush to sweep Yuma. According to historian Frank Love, newspapers reported a diamond field had been discovered in Yuma in 1871.

Two “rough-looking miner types” deposited diamonds in a San Francisco bank. The bank president immediately became interested and offered to buy an interest in the miners' claim.

After some prodding, the miners, who seemed “ignorant prospectors who knew little about banks and financiers,” claimed to have found the diamonds lying on the surface of a remote area.

The news soon leaked and became the talk of all San Francisco.

Newspapers reporters cornered the miners, who after being badgered, said they had discovered the diamonds in southwestern Arizona.

Yuma's newspaper, the Arizona Sentinel, picked up the story in August 1872. The news that there might be diamonds around Yuma caused a great deal of excitement.

Soon the citizens of Yuma were organizing diamond-finding expeditions. But the diamond hunters returned empty-handed several weeks later.

Pressed for proof that the diamond field existed, the miners admitted to lying about the location:

It was in Wyoming. Even that supposed diamond field turned out to be a fraud — but not before the bank president had handed $660,000 over to the miners.

Mara Knaub can be reached at mknaub@yumasun.com or (928) 539-6856. Find her on Facebook at Facebook.com/YSMaraKnaub or on Twitter at @YSMaraKnaub.