Needle work: Bill Claydon's customers believe beauty is skin deep.

• Author: Campbell, Spencer
• Position: PICTURE THIS

In the late 1940s, Bill Claydon's father opened a tattoo parlor in Oceanside, Calif. A 6-by 12-foot room inside an arcade, it was the only one between San Diego and Los Angeles, catering almost exclusively to Marines from nearby Camp Pendleton. When Claydon bought this one in Fayetteville in 1986--he thinks it opened in the '70s, making it one of the oldest, if not the oldest, in the state still in business--it was a lot like his dad's, with mostly military clientele and little competition. Now rivals surround Bill Claydon's Tattoo World Inc.

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Eight percent--145--of the 1,841 ink slingers licensed by N.C. Department of Health and Human Services are in Cumberland County But Fort Bragg's soldiers don't make it unique. Tattooing's mark on the state as a whole has spread, with the number of licensed artists increasing 232% between 2000 and 2011. "Everybody and their brother is in the trade now," Claydon says. Now 64, he got his first tattoo--"Billy" on his shoulder from his father and inked his first customer at 13. "My dad didn't have too many scruples about that." In 1972, he moved to Alaska to work on the pipeline, later landing in Florida, where he opened a few tattoo shops. By 1986, he'd had enough of the heat. When an acquaintance offered to sell his shop, Claydon agreed to pay $5,000 and moved north.

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With nine booths in about 2,500 square feet, Tattoo World has been at its...