Precious Yogo sapphires lay in Yogo Gulch, a 5-mile long dike near the Little Belt Mountains. Around 50 million years ago, igneous rock intruded through a crack in limestone at the earth's surface and formed Yogo Gulch. By serendipitous happenstance, flecks of iron and titanium gave tiny, transparent crystals a luminous cornflower-blue color. The origin of the odd sounding Yogo is unclear, but some believe it is the Pigean Blackfeet word for romance.

The sapphires remained undisturbed until the 1860s when prospector Jake Hoover began looking for gold near Yogo Gulch. He found a few flakes, but more intriguing were the heavy, blue pebbles that settled in the bottom of his sluice box. In 1895 he sealed the stones in a cigar box and sent them to Tiffany and Co. in New York City for identification and appraisal. Hoover was astonished to receive a check from Tiffany's for $3,750 and a note describing the stones as "sapphires of unusual quality.” A year later, sheepherder Jim Eitten found the "mother lode" of blue pebbles in a seam of rock in Yogo Gulch.

Over the next 100 years, a string of mines produced nearly $25 million worth of sapphires, or Montana "blue gold." Yogos have graced the gemstone collections of Kaiser Wilhelm of Germany, Queen Victoria, and the Duchess of York. England's Prince Charles gave Lady Diana Spencer a magnificent 9-carat oval Yogo sapphire surrounded by diamonds to celebrate their engagement. In Lewistown, Yogos glitter from local ladies' earrings, necklaces, and wedding bands.

Rogers Jewelry borrows the sapphire's colorful history, unequaled beauty, scarcity and celebrity, to shape a novel identity beyond traditional diamonds, rubies, emeralds, and pearls. Many jewelry stores sell those treasured gems, but few offer their customers a selection of Yogo sapphires.