In 1911, a mining businessman with more nerve than caution purchased one of the world’s most notorious diamonds. The 45-carat blue stone had already left behind a long trail of broken lives across continents: French kings beheaded, millionaires bankrupted, members of royal families driven mad. But Evelyn Walsh McLean, the golden daughter of Colorado, dismissed the ancient curse stories with a wave of her hand. She wore the Hope Diamond as a pendant around her pet dog’s neck and displayed it at baseball games, declaring herself above the haunted history she had just bought into.
Within a few decades, she had lost two children, watched her husband descend into madness, and seen her family fortune evaporate. Perhaps too late, she understood why owners across the centuries had feared the beguiling blue light at the heart of the precious gem. Born in 1886, Evelyn’s early life mirrored her family’s improbable rise. Her father, Thomas Walsh, an Irish immigrant, had discovered the Camp Bird Mine in Colorado’s rugged San Juan Mountains in the late nineteenth century.
The mine, rich with veins of gold and silver, proved to be one of the most profitable discoveries of its era, lifting the Walsh family from modest beginnings to extraordinary wealth and making Thomas a symbol of the American dream during the Gilded Age. Evelyn’s childhood, shaped by her father’s success, was entirely different from his humble origins. The family’s new fortune opened doors that had been completely shut just a few years earlier. Thomas Walsh invested in his daughter’s future by moving the family to Washington, D.
C. , where they settled into the capital’s social and political life, establishing themselves not only through mining wealth but through active participation in the city’s cultural circles. It was in this environment that Evelyn met Edward “Ned” McLean, heir to the Washington Post publishing empire. Their courtship captured public attention, uniting two prominent American families.
The engagement promised to combine Walsh mining wealth with the McLean publishing empire, creating a socially and financially significant partnership. Their 1908 wedding reflected the vastness of both families’ fortunes. The parents on each side gave the couple one hundred thousand dollars apiece to buy their own wedding gift, an extraordinary sum for the time that displayed the sheer magnitude of family riches. As the newlyweds began their life together, no one could have imagined that their future would become entwined with one of history’s most famous jewels.
Two years after their marriage, in 1910, they met French jeweler Pierre Cartier, who had in his possession an exceptional blue diamond. The 45. 52-carat stone, known as the Hope Diamond, soon captured Evelyn’s imagination. The circumstances by which the remarkable gem would come into her possession began to unfold.
At the time, the McLean couple was staying at their Paris hotel, and Cartier arranged a meeting to show them the stone. Already well known as a jeweler to European royalty and American millionaires, Cartier had recently acquired the stone and recognized the McLeans as buyers capable of such a significant purchase. The diamond was unique not only for its size and color but also for its documented history of royal ownership. It had belonged to the French crown jewels until the French Revolution, after which it disappeared for decades before reemerging in England in the 1830s, purchased by Henry Philip Hope, from whom it took its name.
Subsequent sales and inheritances brought it to Cartier’s possession. The meeting initiated a long negotiation process. The proposed price of one hundred eighty thousand dollars was a substantial investment even for the wealthy McLeans. Ned McLean expressed hesitation at first but ultimately supported his wife’s decision.
The negotiations extended beyond their initial meeting as both sides tried to reach terms that would satisfy everyone. In 1911, after months of discussion, the Hope Diamond finally changed hands. The McLeans purchased the extraordinary blue stone from Cartier for one hundred eighty thousand dollars, equivalent to several million dollars today. The jewelers reset the stone, mounting it in a versatile headpiece that could also be worn as a pendant.
This new setting allowed Evelyn to display the stone in various ways at social events. Evelyn assimilated the Hope Diamond into her life with a casual familiarity that contrasted sharply with its royal history and immense value. One of the most notable examples of her informal attitude was when she occasionally allowed her Great Dane to wear the diamond. Her early years as the Hope Diamond’s owner coincided with a significant period of social and political change in Washington, D.
C. With the outbreak of the First World War and the McLean family’s position at the intersection of media and society as owners of the Washington Post, they found themselves at the center of these transformations. But neither influence nor wealth could protect the family from personal tragedy. In 1919, their nine-year-old son Vincent was killed in a car accident, the first major loss for the family and the beginning of personal challenges that would test Evelyn over the years that followed.
As the 1920s approached, the couple’s lives began to diverge. Ned’s behavior grew increasingly erratic, with his addictions to alcohol and gambling worsening, straining their marriage. The pressure culminated in 1927 when Evelyn separated from her husband. Despite social prestige and his public position as owner of the Washington Post, their personal problems could no longer be contained within the mansion walls.
When the stock market crashed in 1929, ushering in the Great Depression, even the wealthy McLean family felt the impact. During this difficult time, Evelyn even temporarily pawned the Hope Diamond, a decision highlighting the economic reality of the era. In 1933, Ned McLean was declared mentally incompetent and committed to a psychiatric hospital. That same year, the Washington Post, which had been in the McLean family for decades, was sold as part of Edward McLean’s estate settlement.
The newspaper that had been central to their family identity passed to new owners. In 1941, Ned McLean died in the same psychiatric hospital where he had spent his final years. Though the couple had been long separated, his death marked the end of a major chapter in Evelyn’s life, one that had begun with so much hope at their 1908 wedding. The Hope Diamond remained in Evelyn’s possession until her death, serving as a constant companion through decades of dramatic change in her personal life and the wider world.
In 1947, Evelyn Walsh McLean died at the age of sixty. Her life spanned an extraordinary period of American history, from the mining wealth of the Gilded Age through two world wars and the Great Depression, enduring personal tragedies that included the loss of two children and her former husband while maintaining her distinctive presence. After her death, the Hope Diamond found a new path. The stone was sold to Harry Winston, Incorporated, marking the end of its longest private ownership.
Winston displayed the famous diamond across the United States as part of his “Court of Jewels” exhibition for the next decade. In 1958, he donated it to the Smithsonian Institution, where it has remained ever since. Today the Hope Diamond rests at the National Museum of Natural History, where millions of visitors each year marvel at its deep blue brilliance. Its setting has been changed several times since Evelyn’s era, but the stone itself remains unchanged, a unique artifact of natural wonder and human history.
The diamond that once adorned French kings, traveled through private collections for centuries, and was held longest by Evelyn herself, is now the property of the American people. Beneath its protected display case, it continues to captivate viewers as it captivated the mining heiress for more than three decades.