DAVIDSON COUNTY, N.C. (WGHP) -- Davidson County was a microcosm of what happened to the entire Piedmont Triad when the three-legged stool of its economy disappeared in two decades. For more than a hundred years, beginning in the 19th century, the tobacco, furniture and textile industries were the ones that supported a majority of families and communities in the area. Beginning in the 1980s, those industries began to disappear all at the same time. By the early 21st century, they were largely gone. Scott Leonard began his career as a planner in Davidson County in the middle of that economic decline. “When all the businesses started leaving and everyone was unemployed that had that history in the furniture industry, there was no secondary industry to take their place,” Leonard said. As the county tried to survive economically, they had a narrow focus. (Davidson County Historical Society)(Davidson County Historical Society)(Davidson County Historical Society)(Davidson County Historical Society)(Davidson County Historical Society) “Thirty-four years ago [when Leonard began working for the county], we mainly were just trying to figure out what were we going to do with the northern part of the county because that's where all the development pressure was,” Leonard said. “No local developer would go south of Highway 64 ... so we never really had to plan for that area, and we didn't know what to plan because there was just no desire for them to be there.” The county has not only recruited several major companies, but other smaller ones are coming in to supply and support those major manufacturers. They are bringing in wage levels tens of thousands of dollars above the county average.  The most well-known ones are the German transportation giant Siemens Mobility and the American steel manufacturer Nucor as well as the wood products company Eggers. When companies like that look at where they want to put their operations, they want to know there are amenities in the community that they can sell to potential workers. Mike Tesh wasn’t the guy you’d imagine helping provide those amenities just a few years ago. “I was a school teacher,” Tesh said. “I taught school for years, and part of the side gig ... was rental houses. I got into developing rental properties as kind of a side income for me, and it eventually turned into starting my first gym in Kernersville, Triangle Fitness, and that was one of the things where even though it was going into the gym business, that's kind of where the evolution of the development piece began.” Tesh is opening an event space and distillery in one of Lexington Furniture’s original buildings just east of Main Street because he sees Lexington and Davidson County’s potential. “If you look at the geographic location of Lexington having two major highways being this close to Winston-Salem, Greensboro, Salisbury, Charlotte just the proximity to those areas and just with the growth of those areas, they're naturally going to push into our area as well,” Tesh said. There is a bit of the chicken or the egg question. Does a town need amenities to attract the businesses or will getting the businesses to locate there pave the way for the amenities to be built? “It's all tied together,” Tesh said. “It's all part of the same process. I think without one, you can't have the other, and I think that the more amenities you have, the more livable it is, the more desirable it is for companies to come because young people now they have options.” And Tesh has a vision for where all this is going. “In the next five years, I think the landscape will change drastically in Lexington, but I think for me, I wanted to check off ... some of the boxes that we're missing but retain that small town charm," Tesh said. County management is not worried about too many businesses coming. They are concerned about and concentrating on getting the housing they’ll need for new workers recruited to the area, and they’re working on that every day. As he leaves government service after 34 years, Leonard is proud of what he’s leaving behind. “Knowing what the pandemic did to the whole nation, but yet what it did to transform Davidson County has been something that'll be talked about for generations,” Leonard said.