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Washington Evening Journal
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Washington, IA 52353
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Marengo residents love rocks
Shop owner surprised, thrilled about local enthusiasm
Southeast Iowa Union offers audio versions of articles using Instaread. Some words may be mispronounced.
MARENGO — When Paul Stults opened Iowa River Apparel in Marengo in 2021, he offered more than screen-printed clothing. He allows creators to sell their crafts there, and he works on a longtime passion of his own — rocks.
“I’m a rock guy, and one thing led to another,” Stults said. “I can’t get over how many rocks I move in this town. It just slowly blossomed.”
The truth of his statement was apparent Saturday as the shop filled for a geode-cracking event.
“It started as a kid,” said Stults. He visited his aunt and uncle, Hank and Geraldine Schubarth in Western Nebraska and collected rocks.
Later, Stults, of Blairstown, began looking in Iowa’s rivers and streams and found rocks and artifacts. “It was all arrowheads,” he said.
The Iowa and Cedar Rivers can yield nice rocks, Stults said, though geodes aren’t as plentiful here as in other areas of the country. They are plentiful in the tristate area around Keokuk.
Interest in rocks was high during Jingle Around the Square in December, said Stults. “We had a blast.”
Carol singers made music in the front window, and Stults put on a Christmas sweater and greeted children. He handed out polished rocks, and the children loved them.
Kim Long, of Marengo, and Jeff Groff, of Cedar Rapids, helped crack geodes Saturday using two geode crackers. One person wraps the geode in a chain that is the jaw of the simple machine, and another person leans on a lever to exert pressure on the geode until it cracks.
When done correctly, the method cracks the geode into two pieces.
At Stults’ shop Saturday, buyers chose their geodes from various buckets of various prices, and the men cracked them open, making sure the buyers had the first look inside their rocks.
Along with the cracking, Stults and his colleagues taught buyers about the rocks. Look for geodes that are light for their size, they said. That means they aren’t solid inside.
The type of mineral hidden inside is a secret until the rock is broken, and the initial sight of the crystals and colors inside brought expressions of awe from everyone in the shop.
Stults, Long and Groff explained the sources of the colors inside the rocks and provided a look at them under black light.
Henry Hoppe and Deanna Pedersen, of Cedar Rapids, brought in a bucket of geodes they collected at Sheffield. They wanted to open the geodes, but they also wanted to learn about geodes from Stults and his friends.
They found the shop through Facebook, Pedersen said.
Stults is planning another geode cracking for Saturday, Feb. 15. “I’ll be back from Tuscan,” he said. He’s heading for Texas, New Mexico and Arizona on another rock hunt soon for more merchandise and personal pleasure.
Last year, Stults and his brother went to South Dakota to hunt rocks and spent 19 days on the river, he said.
Stults has his personal shop in the back of Iowa River Apparel where he works with rocks he’s found. Among them is watermelon, a rock that consists of red and orange fluorescent calcite sandwiched between two layers of bright green fluorescent chalcedony.
“That’s the hot new item,” Stults said, shining a medium wave black light on the rocks to bring out the colors of the minerals.
Stults has a dinosaur bone and fossils from South Dakota not far from where Sue the T. rex was found in 1990. Sue is on display at the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago, Illinois.
Stults sells petrified wood and dinosaur poop, which fascinates children.
Iowa River Apparel — known by rock enthusiasts as The Rock Shop — also sells crystals for people interested in metaphysical properties of them. A lot of people are into the metaphysical, Stults said.
“I got a lot of people interested in rocks in Marengo.”
