Dakota Sky Stone: Turquoise Is All In The Family

Western jeweler Dakota Sky Stone proves business and family can not only go together, but can, in fact, work wonders. For 50 years and four generations, family history and company history have been one in the same.

“Our family business story begins with a traveling insurance salesman on the Navajo Indian reservation in 1971,” says Annie Tice-Poseley of Dakota Sky Stone. “My grandfather Clinton and grandmother Ginny feel in love with the local people and with the Native American artistry. Ginny wanted to share it with her friends and family in South Dakota, so she started to carry a small ‘trinket’ box with her which she filled with treasures as she traveled the different tribes and artists, forming friendships that we still have today, four generations later.”

dakota sky stone cowgirl magazine — Ginny with her first store in 1971

For nearly 50 years, the Dakota Sky Stone team has traveled to Navajo, Hopi, Zuni, Santo Domingo and Zuni reservations to source the finest quality jewelry and share it with the world. In that, they’ve built relationships that have lasted decades; Annie shares that some artists the brand works with today are the 2nd and 3rd generations of the artists that they began working with half a century ago.

Working with so many different tribes, Dakota Sky Stone has, in Annie’s words “one of the largest selections of the different mines and carry some of the rarest turquoise in the Midwest.”

“By working directly with our artist and turquoise mines we can guarantee the highest quality and best prices,”she continues. “We guarantee our jewelry, and we have always said, ‘You will walk into our stores as a customer and you will leave as our friend.'”

Annie often reflects on the brand’s evolution; the business has gone from her grandmother’s trinket box to stores and a website that can share jewelry faster than ever before.

“It’s truly amazing how times have changed over the years from a small trinket box that traveled the reservations with the first generation of our family, to the 2^nd and 3^rd generation of the family that opened Dakota Sky Stone stores in Historic Deadwood and Badlands of South Dakota,” she says. “Looking forward to the future for our family’s 4^th generation we established a website to share our Native American jewelry worldwide. No matter if you find your way into our stores or looking online you will continue to work with members of our family and receive personal attention, customer service and our passion for turquoise that we have prided ourselves with for almost 50 years.”