LEGO On The Plains: Why A Family In LaGrange, Wyoming (Pop. 372) Started A LEGO Store

LaGRANGE — Before they ever see the neon-yellow store with neat red trim in downtown LaGrange, Wyoming, many customers have just about talked themselves out of the trip.

A LEGO store? In LaGrange?

“It seems impossible,” the customers who do walk into the Wyoming Brickworks store tell its co-owner, Linnea Dix. “I thought maybe it would be like a shelf of LEGOs or something.”

When they see the little store stuffed full of hard-to-get collectibles and brand-new merchandise, they immediately start making plans to return.

“They’ll be like, ‘I have to bring my kids back, I have to bring my grandkids back,’” Dix said with a chuckle. “Next month will be two years, and each weekend we are pulling people from 60 to 100 miles away, because the only other LEGO store like this one in Wyoming is in Powell.”

Customers ride in from western Nebraska, Torrington and Cheyenne, as well as Lingle, Fort Laramie and Casper. One man drove from Riverton specifically to see the store.

Shelf Lessons

Wyoming Brickworks didn’t start with a bona fide business plan examining in detail whether a LEGO store in LaGrange was realistic.

If they had, their building might have stayed an empty bar, as it had been for the previous 13 years. 

LaGrange has a population of just 372, according to the 2020 census — not nearly enough to support a niche hobby store. In fact, just about any store might be problematic. 

But the family’s primary purpose wasn’t about making a gob of money. They just needed something that could support itself while they taught their homeschooled children the basics of business.

The family had idly discussed starting a thrift store a few times, though Dix was partial to a bakery.

Ultimately, though, the family decided that whatever business they started needed to be something she and her second oldest son could bond over.

The two were getting into lots of fights, which had left them both angry and fuming more times than Dix cares to count.

“We clash a lot because we have the same personalities,” Dix said. “And we had reached the point where we almost couldn’t be in the same room.”

When her brother closed down a LEGO store on the East Coast and offered her a truckload of free inventory, Dix saw it as a godsend. Her second oldest, like her other two sons and twin daughters, all loved LEGOs. 

A LEGO business would be the perfect teaching tool.

“So he and I made the trip back to Pennsylvania to get all this stuff and come back,” she said.

Then the family worked together to rip everything out of the vacant bar and paint its black shell into something more suitable for a toy store. Something that would announce that fun was stuffed inside its four walls.

“It took a huge amount of work to put a new roof on and all kinds of stuff,” Dix said. “But we just worked together and got it done.”

Repaired Relationship

Their hands-on classroom’s success as a destination store has surprised the family. No one had any idea people would drive from as far away as Riverton just to shop in the store. 

Most important, though, the store has also helped Dix repair the relationship with her second-oldest son. 

His eyes, meanwhile, were opened to why the schoolwork he’d been expected to complete actually was important — without starting any arguments. 

Since graduation, he has been talking about starting his own fix-and-flip construction business, turning old houses into new.

“This will have been worth it just for that,” Dix said, beaming.  

In fact, she said, it’s been a wonderful catalyst for all of her children. All now have business ideas percolating.

Amelia Dix, a daughter, told Cowboy State Daily the lessons she’s learned have gone far beyond business basics. The teenager is normally shy and introverted. The store has helped her build more confidence.

She now feels like she can talk to anyone.

Counting Every Piece

For customers, Brickworks offers the possibility of finding something rare — a retired set they can only get because someone else is willing to part with it. 

The family has a mix of new, sealed sets and used or retired sets — products no longer being made that must come from someone willing to part with them.

The used inventory that comes in is unpredictable. Someone moving or downsizing might bring in an entire collection, while others might want to trade in sets they have never opened.

Getting these used sets shelf-ready, though, is anything but casual. The family first prints an inventory sheet and checks every piece. They look for toothmarks or cracks in the minifigures, too. 

Missing or damaged parts are ordered to complete a high-quality set. 

“If it says there are 472 pins, you better make sure there’s 472 pins there, because otherwise it won’t go together,” Dix said. 

Once a set is complete, it goes into a sealed bag in a white box, with instructions in a protective sleeve on the front. Then a price is put on the item by comparing it to the going rate at other online venues. 

Stock in the store has evolved as the family learns what most interests its Wyoming customers. At her brother’s Pennsylvania store, Star Wars was a dominant seller. 

Here, not so much. 

Wyomingites are interested in vehicle-oriented sets — cars, tractors and construction equipment.

Attractive Retirement Gig

Part of building the business has just been helping people believe it’s really there, and that it’s worth the trip. 

Larger roadside signs have helped capture some customers who had driven past without realizing the store was there. Word of mouth, media coverage, and a visitor’s recent TikTok video have helped spread word of the store to other places, such as Nebraska.

Dix and her husband have been talking about the store’s future once their children are grown and have started businesses of their own.

There’s a growing idea that they just might keep the store, even expanding it so there is more room for sets as well as bring-your-own-beverage LEGO nights.

Her husband, who works in law enforcement, has found LEGOs to be therapeutic. One time, unable to sleep, he walked the few blocks from his home to the store around 3 a.m. to putter among the bricks.

For now, though, retirement is still a few years off and there are collections to sort, missing pieces to find, and people arriving by the dozens on a random Saturday to discover something no one had been sure could exist in LaGrange.

Renée Jean can be reached at renee@cowboystatedaily.com.