Candor, NC

Candor sits on the Montgomery-Moore county line along U.S. 220 Alternate, with Main Street carrying the Sandhills town between Biscoe and Norman. The west side drains toward Little River tributaries, while the east side belongs to the Deep River watershed and eventually the Cape Fear system, so the town's boundary crosses a real water divide. Candor's name was chosen for the honest dealings associated with its early settlers, but peaches are the lasting shorthand. In the late 1800s, local investors formed the Candor Fruit Company; in 1902, one of its founders planted 30,000 young peach trees below town, helping establish commercial orchards in the area.

The N.C. Peach Festival still brings the growing region into downtown every third Saturday in July. The parade runs along South Main Street, and Fitzgerald Park hosts music, vendors, train rides, fresh peaches, and peach ice cream. The North Carolina Peach Growers' Society is also based in Candor, carrying forward a growers' organization that dates to 1963. Candor is small enough for the festival to take over the center for a day, yet its peach story reaches across the Sandhills: orchards and packhouses once sent fruit out by rail, and local markets keep the crop part of the town's present-day routine.