The latest unemployment numbers are out, indicating that the Elkhart area is, well, moving in the right direction, but the modest improvement isn’t about to spark any spontaneous dancing in the streets.

In another stirring of life in the RV industry, a producer of towable RVs in Elkhart announced that it will hire 400 more workers to step up production, The Elkhart Truth reported on Wednesday.Heartland Recreational Vehicle LLC has new demand, which dealers say is at least in pa …

John Schoen / msnbc.com

  John Ravenscroft, manager of Mad Anthony's restaurant in Elkhart, Ind., says business is picking up.

ELKHART, Ind. -- As economists sift through the tea leaves looking for signs of recovery, they might want to stop by for a beer at Mad Anthony's on Main Street.

When times get tough, eating out is one of the first things people trim from their budgets. So when this Fort Wayne-based brewery decided to open a fourth restaurant here about a year ago -- with the economy still in free fall -- it was something of a leap of faith.

ELKHART, Ind. -- Returning to his hometown, Chris Burkhead hopes he's seeing signs of change in the devastated local economy.
When first profiled in July in "Faces of Elkhart," the third-generation member of two highly successful family businesses was living in Davenport Iowa, telecommuting as chief estimator for the larger concern, Indiana Plastics, while his wife, Angela Lucterhand, studied to be a chiropractor.

Elkhart community leaders on Wednesday brainstormed ways to pull out of the recession, starting with the premise -- now self-evident -- that the county can no longer expect the RV industry to hold up the community. In it's effort to re-envision the future, The Elkhart Truth reported, the county called in people who know their way around the challenge -- leaders from the Rust Belt.

In 2002, Elkhart government and business leaders issued an SOS: The Elkhart economy--though booming--was heading for trouble if it didn't start changing its ways.