Maine tannery to close by the end of the summer
US-based tanning group Tasman Leather has announced that it will wind down operations at the tannery in Hartland, Maine, that it acquired from Prime Tanning in 2011.
Founded in 1947, Kentucky-based Tasman Leather grew to set up facilities in Texas and Nebraska too and, by 2014, was processing around 160,000 hides per week.
It acquired the site in Maine after Prime Tanning had filed for protection against bankruptcy. Tasman said it didn’t want to see the company, with its talented and highly skilled group of US leather makers, fall by the wayside and brought it into the Tasman Group.
After the acquisition, it said it had invested in “restoring the vintage facility” in Hartland and in “putting the heart and soul back into the leather” the tannery produced. When it came across original recipes for famous articles such as Crazy Horse, Rage, Pitstop, Renegade, Old Town and Floater in the archives, it decided to make them again using the original formulas and relaunch a collection it called Prime Originals.
Local reports in Maine have quoted the company as saying the site there will close by the end of the summer. The Bangor Daily News quoted company president, Norman Tasman, as saying that the covid-19 pandemic had had “a devastating impact” on demand, and that reinstatement of that demand was “uncertain both in timing and magnitude”, making continued operations impossible.
