FLORSHEIM TO CLOSE DOORS

An industry that has operated in Cape Girardeau since soon after the turn of this century will close by year's end.

Florsheim Shoe Co., which once occupied a multilevel structure on North Main and is now in a modern plant at Southwest End Boulevard and Southern Expressway, announced Monday it will close by late December.

The closure is part of a continuing effort to reduce costs and increase operating efficiencies, Richard J. Anglin, Forsheim executive vice president and chief financial officer, said from Florsheim's Chicago headquarters.

"Plant closings and staff reductions are always difficult," said Anglin. "But this closing will allow us to consolidate our manufacturing and become more operationally efficient."

The factory's output primarily will be transferred to a joint venture the company has with a manufacturing partner in India.

The closing here will affect approximately 300 employees and is expected to reduce costs by about $4.5 million annually.

The factory in India produces shoes of similar style and quality of those made in the Cape Girardeau factory, said Anglin. "The India factory already produces most of the upper shoe used by the Cape Girardeau plant," he said.

"We hate to lose a company like Florsheim," said John Mehner, president of the Cape Girardeau Chamber of Commerce. "We'll work with the employees any way we can to help them with employment."

The shoe manufacturing industry in the United States has been dwindling the past 20 years.

"I think it says something for the local work force that Florsheim kept its operations here as long as they have," said Mehner.

Florsheim designs, markets and manufactures a diverse and extensive line of men's footwear in the middle-to-upper price range. Florsheim distributes products to more than 6,000 department and specialty stores worldwide.

Florsheim was recognized in 1994 as the Cape Girardeau Chamber of Commerce's Industry of the Year. Florsheim's work force at that time topped 450 with a $6 million payroll. The company was producing more than 3,100 pairs of shoes a day then.

Florsheim Shoe was founded in 1892 as Roberts, Johnson and Rand Shoe Co. The company came to Cape Girardeau in 1906, when the city was in need of a large industry to make up for the loss of the Frisco Railroad shop and terminal business that had moved to Chaffee.

A five-story, 165,000-square-foot shoe factory opened on North Main Street in 1907, and the first shipment of shoes was shipped out of the plant in October 1907.

Roberts, Johnson and Rand later became International Shoe Co., and eventually Florsheim Shoes.

Florsheim moved to its plant along Southern Expressway in 1969. The old plant remained in use for the production of shoe leather until 1984.

When Florsheim vacated the brick structure on North Main, the company donated the building to the Chamber of Commerce. It has been torn down, and the chamber has sold the property.