Friday, October 18, 2002 · Last updated 3:10 p.m. PT

By DAVID SHARP ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER

WATERVILLE, Maine -- Workers at the nation's last major shirt manufacturing plant stitched their last button-downs Friday following a failed attempt to save the factory whose shirts were made famous by the man-with-an-eyepatch logo.

C.F. Hathaway, which has been making shirts in Maine for 165 years, will go the way of Arrow and Van Heusen, once strong competitors whose shirts are now being made overseas.

Like those other brands, Hathaway shirts will live on but they will no longer carry the "Made in the USA" label.

The last shirts produced at the Hathaway plant were sewn at about noon. Only a handful of workers remained to box and fold those shirts. Distribution of the remaining shirts will keep 25 people employed through December. The closing is putting 235 people out of work.

A trickle of workers carried fans, which kept them cool in the hot factory, and other belongings to their cars, where they lingered to say their good-byes.

"It's losing your family. My God, we've been through divorces and deaths and children growing up and grandchildren, we've been though everything in there and we are family," said Sherry Laliberty, 59, who worked in the plant for 35 years.

The Hathaway factory's demise became inevitable after it failed to win a key contract to make shirts for the Air Force, and the nonprofit Made in the USA Foundation failed to line up investors to take over the facility.

"A lot of people saw the writing on the wall five or six years ago," said Ron Fingel, the Waterville city administrator. "It was expected for so long it wasn't like a shoe dropping in a quiet room."

Hathaway, known for its man-with-an-eye-patch logo, began production in 1837 - it once manufactured shirts for the Union Army during the Civil War - and over time set the standard for quality men's with its tailor-made quality dress shirts sold off-the-rack.

Windsong Allegiance Group, which operates the Hathaway plant, was willing to donate the equipment to anyone with the financial backing to keep it going, said Colette Sipperly, spokeswoman for the company.

"We regret that we were unable to really bring the plan to fruition," she said from her office in New York.

Hathaway follows a growing number of apparel and shoe companies that have moved production overseas.

Those include G.H. Bass and Cole Haan, which shut down their Maine shoe factories in 1998 and 1999. The Dexter shoe plant also closed late last year, putting 475 people out of work.

Hathaway put up a fight before succumbing to pressures of foreign competition that sent others packing.

It was on the verge of closing five years ago before a local investment group financed a bailout. It was again on the verge of collapse last fall when Windsong Allegiance Group bought the company last year.

Less than six months after Windsong bought Hathaway, the company announced plans to shut it down in June.

A last-minute, $5 million contract from Wal-Mart staved off the inevitable, as the Made in the USA Foundation tried in vain to find investors to keep the plant open.

Donald Sappington, president of Hathaway, said it's difficult for a U.S. manufacturer to compete in a global economy when products can be made elsewhere at vastly lower wages. Consumers are interested in the lowest-priced shirt, not where it's made, he said.

The man-in-the-patch logo is imprinted in the memories of many men who remember their fathers and grandfathers wearing them.

Richard Hewes, who bought 10 shirts from the factory store on Friday, remembers his grandfather giving him some Hathaway shirts. Hewes has been wearing them since 1975.

"I'm not saying it's a family tradition. It's just a good quality shirt," said Hewes, a lawyer who works in Augusta.

Windsong already has launched a Hathaway sportswear line that's made overseas, and the Westport, Conn.-based company will line up plants to continue the Hathaway label for men's shirts, as well, Sipperly said. Windsong also has plants overseas making apparel brands like Alexander Julian and Joe Boxer.

"Basically we think the future looks bright because it's a great brand and there's great recognition," Sipperly said.

The company may even bring back the man with the patch.

"It really needs to be reintroduced to a new generation," she said.id.

-- Anonymous, October 19, 2002