Three generations carry on the legacy of the Torrington Rock Shop, a
family business rooted in stone, stories, and community.
MARK KESZLER
Nspire Today! Feature Writer
TORRINGTON, Wyo. — In a small Wyoming town where travelers, rockhounds, and curious passersby still stop to peer through display windows filled with crystals, fossils, and handmade jewelry, the Torrington Rock Shop continues a tradition that stretches back more than six decades. It is a place built by hand, shaped by family, and sustained by people who share a deep love of rocks, nature, and the stories that come with them.
The shop first opened its doors in 1963 as a rock and driftwood shop. The original owners, Dale and Wanda Miller, teamed up with Wanda’s sister, Lola, and her husband, Ted Schiller. What started as a shared hobby — collecting Wyoming jade — soon grew into a business and owning rights to a jade mine in Jeffery City, Wyoming.
From there. “They scavenged all the free materials they could and built the shop themselves.”
From the beginning, the shop was rooted in ingenuity. The founders did not rely on expensive equipment or factory-made systems. Instead, they built much of what they needed with their own hands, including “the equipment for polishing and tumbling the stones”
That do-it-yourself spirit still lives inside the shop today. Much of the original, homemade equipment is still in use, and maintaining it has become part of the business’s daily reality.
“This has been a really cool thing to see but also a bit of a frustration for us to figure out,” they said. “As the machines need worked on here and there, we have to try to think, ‘What would Dale do?’ Everything is custom and pieced together. There is no such thing as ordering parts and simply installing them.”
The current owners’ connection to the shop goes back decades. Tineasha Ollila runs the business alongside her mom Loree Marlin. Loree has known the Millers and Schillers since the 1970s and Tineasha has known them her whole life visiting the shop every year. Her husband Dan got to know them in 2012 after they moved from Washington.
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