Diamond in the Rough - Follow Up

Many thanks to Darrell for confirming the story of diamonds at Sibley with his mother. My vague memory was that a diamond had been found at some point in the gravel pits around Sibley and Bayou Dorcheat. After Darrell's comment on the earlier post, I went ahead and took a chance on the combination of the 1973 date given by the clipping at the Bossier History Center and Darrell's mother's memories and went to the microfilm of the Minden Press-Herald.

I found that in fact, the discovery of diamonds was the #6 local news story of 1973 as ranked by the Press-Herald. But, I also found that the story had no mention of a little girl finding the gem in her driveway. The Webster Parish story involved excavations by Gifford-Hill between Sibley and Doyline along Highway 164. In August 1973, several gem quality diamonds, between six and eight, were found in the gravel diggings. The company kept things quiet until October when they gave the story to the Press-Herald. At that point the company sealed access to the pits where the diamonds had been found and was actually exploring to see if they had discovered a viable commercial cache of diamonds.

Obviously, since 37 years have passed and we don't have diamond mines at Sibley, nothing came of this brief excitement. I've passed the clippings on to the Bossier History Center and will let them coordinate the two stories and see if they revolve around the same set of circumstances. With both taking place in 1973, that seems likely. Again, thanks to Darrell.