From tiles to tabletops, unique company creates art from ancient stone

 by Sherri Cullison Pfouts


When Thomas Reynolds wanted to remodel the kitchen of his 1924 Milwaukee home, he thought about jux-taposing granite and sandstone with modern stainless-steel appliances. The plan was set — in stone, one might say— until a friend told him about the Green River Stone Company.

At the company’s private quarry in southwestern Wyoming, employees work day and night to unearth 50-million-year-old fish fossils, which are sent to a Utah lab where technicians sand-blast, chip and chisel away the top layers of rock to reveal their celebrated finds. The pieces are then prepared for such commercial uses as countertop tiles, art murals, tabletops and more.

Reynolds realized that the fossils would be the perfect complement to his kitchen’s redesign. After some research, he ordered six tiles: one Priscacara (an oval, sunfish-like species), three Knightia (herring fish) and two plain tiles. With that, Reynolds’ order — and kitchen plan — was complete.

Regarded as timeless natural art, these stone-and-fossil pieces are stead­ily making their way into private homes, museums and art galleries around the world, thanks to paleontologists like Tom Lindgren, who serves as Green River Stone’s founding partner and director of paleontology.

Lindgren’s first opportunity to dig for fossil fish came in 1978 in Wyoming’s Fossil Lake, which was home to fish, crocodiles and turtles for millions of years. Now the dried lakebed houses some of the best-preserved fossils ever discovered.

Quarry Manager Jerome Montgomery looks for fossils at night by using a lantern to cast light across the surface of the stone.Subtle variations in the stone's surface show whether fossils are encased underneath.

Lindgren fell in love with the area and in 1985 took out a lease on the 11-acre quarry in the heart of the lakebed. He started small, traveling to trade shows to sell his treasures, and admits he didn’t mar­ket himself very well in the beginning. “I wasn’t inter­ested in becoming a rich man,” he says. “I just want­ed to keep doing what I was doing for the rest of my life."

A chance meeting with Greg Laco and Doug Miller gave him that opportunity. “We began targeting art galleries and interior designers and altering the product to go more for the aesthetic,” says Laco, Green River Stone’s president.

Today, the company has showrooms in such far-flung places as Phoenix, Minneapolis and Tokyo, and the fos­silized fish aren’t the only attraction. The stone, smoothed to reveal its many layers, also offers one-of-a-kind beauty. Colors range from choco­late browns to bluish grays and tans, while striations provide texture and visual interest.

If these pieces sound expensive, it’s because they are. Laco says a 6-by-6-inch tile costs around $180. Countertops and tabletops will set you back about $300 per square foot. And murals can run much higher —anywhere from $500 to a few thousand dollars or more per square foot.

But customers don’t seem to mind the price tags. “Using natural items as art and living with them func­tionally as countertops tends to be very grounding for a lot of my clients,” Lindgren says.

In Reynolds’ case, visitors are simply amazed by his new kitchen. “At first they don’t believe these are fossilized fish,” he says. “It’s so rare to find unique pieces like that. They’re the focal point when I entertain now.”

If you have used the services of Green River Stone Company, please contact us to submit a report.

Contact info: Green River Stone Company

“At first, [visitors] don’t believe these are fossilized fish,” says Thomas Reynolds, who used a tile border to highlight the backsplash in his new kitchen.

For access to thousands of unbiased reports and reviews on service companies in your area, join Angie's List today.