Linda Caperton, Caperton Candle Company

Linda moved to the Ozarks in 1973 as part of the "back to the land" movement. She arrived in Stone County just in time to help design and build the candle shop at the Ozark Folk Center and spent 1973, their opening year, as candlemaker-in-residence. The following year she began to make candles at home. She worked the craft circuit in the southeastern states, selling retail direct to the public until 1993, when she bought 24 acres just south of Calico Rock and began her wholesale business. It took six months to convert the concrete block "factory" on the property to shop and home.

Linda makes a "chunk" candle, filling the metal molds with colored blocks of wax and then overpouring with hot scented wax. "All of the process is done here by hand," says Linda, "from pouring chunks to finishing each candle with a hot melt process, to leveling, labeling and packing."

"I feel fortunate to live as I do," she says, "very rural, between two small towns. My candles are shipped to small retail establishments all over the country and have even been carried to Europe and the Far East as gifts in the suitcases of some of my customers. I'm a very small business, but have a reputation for quality and a fragrance that lasts the life of the candle."

Linda lives with four cats and "hundreds" of hummingbirds, and welcomes you to come on by.

---