Paffrath Jewelers celebrates 100 years in 2026

Owatonna’s Paffrath Jewelers has begun its 100th year of serving customers.

The business started with watchmaking and repairs in Willmar, said Callan Paffrath-Jameson, great-great-granddaughter of founder Rudy Paffrath. She is the fourth generation and the first woman to own the business, she said.

The Willmar store, which also sold flatware, moved to jewelry retail over the years, she said, and her grandfather, Lowell, moved it to Faribault. The business moved again to a location at the Cedar Mall in Owatonna in the 1960s.

Paffrath-Jamison took over the business after the death of her father, Ted, in a 2013 tree-cutting accident. She and her mother have been co-owners of the business, she said, although Marcia Paffrath works as a special education teacher in multiple school districts.

Still, Paffrath-Jamison said, “I would not be here today without her. She is one of my best friends.”

There was never any doubt that Paffrath-Jamison would enter the family business. She worked alongside her father while a student at Owatonna High School.

“It was fun,” she said. “I was taught how to do hand engraving.”

Her work at the store actually began years earlier, she said. When she was a little girl, she would wrap presents for the customers.

After graduating from OHS, Paffrath-Jamison attended the University of Wisconsin-Stout, where she earned a degree in business.

Her father wanted her to get some “outside” experience before coming back to Owatonna, so she started working at Jared Jewelers. She had been there just under a year when her father died, and she made an earlier-than-planned return to the family business.

While the store still sells rings, jewelry, and watches, Paffrath-Jamison said she has really found her own area of expertise.

“I find I have carved out my own niche,” she said. “Ninety percent of what I do is custom work. We rarely sell directly out of the case.”

Her father, Paffrath-Jamison said, “dipped his toe” into designing, but she really took it to the next level. Basically, she said, a person comes in with an idea, and she tries to make their dream come true.

Customers may bring in an heirloom piece to have it repurposed or may come in with only an idea. Either way, Paffrath-Jamison said, she talks with them to determine their vision for the piece, then designs a 3-D rendering. 

When the client approves of the design, it is sent on to a Minnesota goldsmith, who casts the design in gold or silver. Paffrath-Jamison said she tries to keep everything they do local, or at least in Minnesota. The setting of stones in the jewelry, she said, is all done locally.

“The Owatonna community is hugely supportive,” Paffrath-Jamison said, as are neighboring communities. “I am seriously blessed that people are coming in. It is exciting and humbling.”

She added that she is able to help customers no matter what their budget is.

Paffrath-Jamison and her husband, Mike Jamison, who owns Accurate Concrete Construction & Pumping, have two young children. One of them may decide to become the fifth generation to own Paffrath Jewelers, she said. And perhaps the other child, she added, will be the second generation to own the concrete business.