LEWISTON – Falcon Shoe, one of the last remnants of Lewiston-Auburn’s shoe-making dynasty, is up for sale.

The 41-year-old shoe manufacturer went on the block earlier this month. Its parent company, Iron Age Corp., has decided to move all production work to Asia.

About 94 Falcon employees make specialty footwear at the Continental Mill shoe shop. The company generates about $2 million a year in private label sales to companies that want a Made in the USA label on their footwear. High-tech fire boots are among its biggest sellers.

The sale is being handled by New England Business Exchange, which has posted information about Falcon on its Web site. Calls to the broker were not returned. Paul Russo of Iron Age Corp. and local manager Roland Landry refused to comment.

At its peak, Falcon employed just under 500 people and occupied 120,000 square feet of space. It made a name for itself by pioneering technological advances in footwear under former owner Ted Johanson.

“He was a very technology-oriented person … it was a personal avocation of his,” said Fawn Everson, president of the footwear division of the American Apparel and Footwear Association. “Falcon has always had a reputation as a good technological facility and a good bootmaker.”

Everson said several people were discussing the Falcon sale at a national footwear convention in Las Vegas last week.

The broker’s Web site touts Falcon’s work force, which has an average of 20 years experience and makes under $10 an hour.

“Factory personnel are high-grade craftspeople with a long history in the footwear industry. Local management is first rate,” said the posting.

It also states the company is well positioned to make boots and shoes for government contracts that require domestic-made goods, such as the departments of Defense and Homeland Security.

Lewiston and Auburn have a long history of shoe making. The industry employed about 7,000 people locally in the 1950s. In the 1920s, Auburn was considered the shoe-making capital of the world.

Iron Age is a leading supplier of industrial footwear, a market valued at $800 million. Falcon made about 19 percent of Iron Age footwear in fiscal 2003.

In 2003, 98.5 of the footwear purchased in the United States was made overseas.

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