BERWICK – Prime Tanning Co. will reopen its Berwick plant to help meet the demand for military boots that has increased since Sept. 11.

The announcement came three weeks after the company – once one of southern Maine’s largest employers – closed its plants in Berwick and Rochester, N.H. The move cost 550 workers their jobs.

Company president Ken Purdy said he expects to have about 150 people working two shifts by Jan. 2. The Rochester plant will stay closed.

The workers will produce leather the Pentagon needs for combat boots for reservists, active-duty personnel and National Guard troops being deployed as part of Operation Enduring Freedom.

“The increase in demand for leather for military footwear is expected to be twice next year what it was this year,” Purdy said.

Rumors of the news circulated in Berwick for days before this week’s announcement. Residents of the growing bedroom community of nearly 8,000 on the New Hampshire border were overjoyed.

“I think it’s great news,” said Marc Patnaude, a local resident who works in North Berwick for Pratt & Whitney. “The economy needs all the jobs it can get, and Prime is the only big company in this town.”

Prime Tanning is the largest local taxpayer.

Prime Tanning had been one of the world’s largest producers of shoe leather. But business suffered as the domestic shoe industry faced increasing competition from abroad.

Purdy said business has been up for domestic leather producers since Sept. 11. U.S. shoemakers don’t have the time to wait for the extra security inspections now imposed on foreign products, he said.

And Americans are more interested in buying domestic products since the attacks.

“There is a bubbling patriotism out there that wasn’t there before September 11,” Purdy said.