About & Contact — The Candy Kitchen
Our Candy Kitchen
One copper kettle, one marble slab, one family, and sixty-four years of county fairs. Come see the pull, or write to us from wherever the candy dish lives.
The 1962 story
Ruth and Delbert Marsh hung their first copper kettle from a salvaged barn beam in the autumn of 1962, a few weeks before the Jo Daviess County Fair opened its midway. Ruth pulled the sugar at dawn; Delbert toasted pecans in a washtub oven; and by the time the string lights came on, the fair had a candy counter it never forgot.
Their granddaughter Caroline runs the kitchen today — same kettle, same marble, the same brass leaf molds, and a wax stamp that has outlasted three generations of candy makers. Nothing here is automated except the love of the work, which was never in short supply.
Visit us on Main Street
Copper Kettle Confectionery Co.
3218 Main Street
Galena, Illinois 61036
Thursday through Sunday, 10:00 in the morning to 6:00 in the evening. We close during the Jo Daviess County Fair week because the whole kitchen goes to the midway — you can usually find us under the striped tent by the ferris wheel.
From Rockford, take US-20 west to Galena. From Dubuque, cross the bridge and climb the hill — the kettle is on your right, past the bookshop.
Write to the kitchen
copperkettlecandies@gmail.com
Telephone: (815) 555-0147
Tell us four things and we will set a tin aside for your visit or your gift: the occasion, the flavor family you love (maple and brown butter, pecan and caramel, cinnamon and spice, or molasses and honey), the tin size you are imagining (Keepsake 4, Pantry 12, or Hearth 24), and the date the tin is needed. A human — usually Caroline — answers Thursday through Sunday.
Care packages and corporate tins
We arrange care package treats for grandparents, nurses, teachers, and faraway neighbors, and we assemble thank-you tins for hospitals, libraries, and volunteer fire departments. Write with your quantity and your date and we will pour toward it.
Fair weekends and tasting afternoons
On select Saturdays from September through December, the kitchen hosts tasting afternoons — small cups of cider, warm brittle off the slab, and the story of the morning pull told properly, apron and all. Write ahead and we will keep a stool by the marble.
“Candy is memory you can hold in your palm. We just happen to wrap ours in wax and twine.”
— Caroline Marsh, Kitchen Keeper
Letters answered
Letters answered within two business days, Thursday through Sunday. Last notebook pinned to the cork board: November 2026.