Ever wonder why there is a smiley face painted on the Eagle Water tower?

It came about in the year 1951. A board member was traveling through the state of Indiana and noticed a smiley face painted on a water tower. At the Eagle village board meeting a vote was being made to determine what color to paint the water tower, blue or yellow. This board member mentioned the smiley face water tower he saw traveling through Indiana and the vote to paint the tower yellow with a smiley face was established 4 to 3. The painted smiley face water tower became quite an item. It appeared in several newspapers all over the United States and also appeared in publications in Rome, Italy and London, England.

Eagle’s water tower stands on the very place where one of the largest glacial diamonds was found in 1876, when digging a well at summit of what is today called Diamond Hill. The diamond was dug up by Charles Woods. The land was owned by Thomas Deveraux, and the Woods were Devereaux’s renters. Mr. Woods thought the diamond was a topaz. It was said that Mr. Woods gave it to a girl that they were caring for. The girl meanwhile left the Woods homestead and also left the stone. As they had hard times, Clarissa Woods took it to a jeweler, Samuel B. Boynton from Milwaukee who along with Clarissa Woods thought the stone was a topaz. Boynton offered her one dollar for the stone, but she did not accept the offer until later.

When Boynton finally got to purchase the stone, he took it to Chicago and had the stone examined by a gemologist and found out it was a rough diamond weighing 15.37 carats and was valued at $700.00. When news leaked out about the stone, Clarissa Woods filed suit on Mr. Boynton, feeling that she had been cheated. The suit between Clarissa Woods and Mr. Boynton lasted for several years, however, Clarissa Woods lost the case. During this time, Boynton sold the diamond to Tiffany’s in New York City for $850.00. The diamond remained uncut because they could not prove possession. It remained at Tiffany’s until the first World War. Then, J.P. Morgan bought the diamond as a gift to The American Museum of Natural History, in New York City. It was placed in the J.P. Morgan exhibit along with the Star Sapphire of India and the de Long Ruby.

On October 29, 1964 after its discovery some 88 years ago, the Eagle Diamond became part of the national headlines. A major jewelry theft occurred from the American Museum of Natural History, where 24 stones were stolen from the fourth floor of the museum. the star Sapphire of India (563 carats) and the de Long Ruby and the Eagle Diamond (valued at $25,000), at the time were taken. The value of the theft was $410,000.00. Most of the stones were recovered, but the Eagle Diamond disappeared. The Eagle Diamond was not the largest diamond at the American Museum of Natural History, but it is the most talked about. The loss of the Eagle Diamond is the single most dramatic event in the museum’s history.

Another interesting fact, was that there was a needle alarm under the jewels stolen from the museum, but the battery was dead during the theft. One of the robbers, Jake Murphy also known as "Murph the Surf", is currently out of prison and works in Orlando, Florida.

If interested in reading more about the Eagle Diamond, read "Dinosaurs in the Attic" by Douglas J. Preston.