By ROY CHURCH, Wabash Plain Dealer
Operations at the Wabash Magnetics facility here came to an end Friday.
Linda Wright-Manuel, human resources director for Kurz-Kasch, confirmed the closing, noting she had just returned from the facility late Friday afternoon.
Wabash Magnetics, which has a plant in South Boston, Va., in addition to the one in Wabash, was purchased by Kurz-Kasch Inc. in 2003. Then in September of 2008, it was announced the plant was being closed here and the operations consolidated with a Kurz-Kasch plant in Miamisburg, Ohio, near Dayton.
The Wabash facility is located at 1450 First St. on the city's South Side. It was reported in September that there were 78 employees. In 2003, it was reported there were 200 employees.
Wabash Magnetics was started in 1946 in a small room above the movie theater, according to the Wabash County History, Bicentennial Edition. By that time the company had nine plants in seven communities in Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, Missouri and Virginia and had grown from 19 employees to more than 1,200, "most of whom are women," the book noted.