Special to the Tribune Chronicle / Don Knight 0Thousands of Anderson, Ind., residents turned out for the ‘‘Taste of Nestle’’ downtown festival in August to celebrate the coming of a Nestle plant.

For Anderson, Ind., General Motors Corp. was king. About 27,000 Anderson and surrounding Madison County residents labored in factories, building parts for the world’s largest automaker.

For North Carolina’s Caldwell County, nestled in the state’s Appalachia, furniture was the economy’s lifeblood. Two-thirds of local residents labored for Broyhill and Bernhardt furniture for decades.

In its heyday, millions of tons of steel and metal products flowed from the Youngstown-Warren region. Generations worked in steel mills and auto factories, never imagining life without the grit burrowed under their fingernails or the soot clogging their lungs.

“Everybody breathing dirt, eating dirt — they call it ‘pay dirt,’ for Youngstown clean would be Youngstown out of work,” said Youngstown steelworker and socialist Frank Bohn in 1915.

But the good times ended for the Mahoning Valley, Anderson and Lenoir.