A look back: February 13, 1989

The Monk Fur Company Inc., 300 W. Broadway, Jim Thorpe, is going out of business after 35 years.

Fred Manning of Pocono Pines, the firm’s president, attributed his decision to terminate the operation to a loss of market as the result of cheap imports from foreign companies.

In operation at the Jim Thorpe site since 1959, Monk at one time employed 70 or more employees, the current staff having been reduced to about a dozen. Some of the workers have left since Manning told them of the closing.

The company had been in the business of processing rabbit pelts and, at the height of its cycle, handled up to 15,000 units a day.