CLEVELAND COUNTY, NC (WBTV) -
Abandoned mills dot the landscape in much of North Carolina, including Cleveland County.
It's a reminder of the manufacturing and textile jobs that left our region in the 80s and 90s and never came back.
While the National unemployment rate has fallen to 7 point 8 percent, the rate in Cleveland County was 10 point 6 percent in December.
Along Highway 29 in Cleveland County, workers at Ronda's restaurant feel the changing pulse of the economy every day during the noon time hour.
Ronda has the day off, but her husband Mike Hartman is running the ship and very hot grill.
"We've been blessed here. We're on top of it. We stay ahead,"he said. "Some of the places are starting to pick up a little bit."
Less than a mile down the rail line from the restaurant, another form of heat and heartbreak can be found.
Smoldering rubble from Thursday's big fire offers a flash back to Grover's thriving times.
The old textile mill was started by Lowrance Harry's grandfather.
Harry said, "At one time they had six to seven hundred employees here and one at one time they made 60 to 70 thousand bedspreads a week.
Back at the restaurant, Mike Hartman knows the pain of unemployment.
" I used to have 12 employees, but now I'm down to six."
At Ronda's, things are turning around, Kelsi Weaver responded to the words help wanted.
" I'm not gonna give up.I'm gonna keep trying and what ever comes to, I'm gonna do what I have to do, "she said." Because a job is a job and I need money."
Weaver is one of the faces behind the numbers.
Meanwhile, Highway 29 that runs by Ronda's may be called battleground highway for another reason.
These days, closed factories offer a snap shot of the past, and new signs that say now hiring suggest hope for the future.
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