By admin 
BURKE COUNTY, N.C. (WJZY) — Just outside the town of Hildebran, Henry River Mill Village may look eerily familiar to you.
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A lot of people come to explore something they’ve seen on the big screen.
“She’s a fan of The Hunger Games,” said Shana Cappiello of Hickory, who brought her daughter along for a tour.
“My name is Donovan, site manager,” says Donovan Harper. “I’m just going to let you guys know what we’re doing to preserve the village.”
Movie buffs know this as District 12, where the 2012 blockbuster The Hunger Games begins.
“Think more Hollywood than history because they really gutted the place out,” Harper said, walking us through the home where the Everdeen family lived in the film.
“This was Primrose’s room from the first Hunger Games movie. The bed and side table are the only things from the production,” Harper told Queen City News.
“You’re actually here, like, you don’t have to pinch me. This is not a dream,” said Emma Jordan of Iredell County, a Hunger Games fan.
There’s a plot twist on this property that goes beyond pop culture.
“There’s a whole other sub-history and just a whole other thing to this place,” Harper said.
“They come here, and yeah, there’s always something to talk about,” he explained.
“Long before District 12 became a silver screen landmark, the Henry River Manufacturing mill was here from 1905 until it closed in 1970. 20 homes on the property were for workers and their families.
“There’s still a lot of people in this area that have roots to this village,” Harper says.
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Michael Namour is the co-owner of the village, which was added to the National Register of Historic Places.
“I think the history needs to be preserved, to be honest with you,” said Namour.
Folks who lived there knew one building as a company store. The Hunger Games made it famous as Peeta’s Bakery.
From above, you can see a hole in the roof. Inside, the structure that’s tied to the mill and movie history has fallen into disrepair.
“It’s dilapidated; it needs a lot of work,” Namour said.
“So, this is the ceiling where it all really started,” says business partner Adam Coffey. “The leaking goes to the floor, and that’s what goes down to the main floor to the basement. So this is essentially where we’ve got to start repairing.”
“Ultimately the plan is to restore some of these buildings back to their better days,” Harper says.
The owners hope to raise hundreds of thousands of dollars for the Henry River Preservation Fund to stabilize the roof and save the structure.
Some visitors come for cinema backdrops but wind up going down a different rabbit hole.
“They came into see where The Hunger Games was filmed, to be honest with you. But then when they look at the history of the property, they take a different perspective,” Namour said.
This setting is where fact and fiction merge. There’s a race against time to restore Henry River Mill Village before it’s too late.
“I think it’d be cool for people to be able to walk through and see and to keep history alive,” said Kayla Cappiello.
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